Trump: US holding back on strikes against Iran at the request of Gulf states

US President Donald Trump has said that Washington is refraining from taking more aggressive military action against Iran at the request of several Middle Eastern countries.

The US president made the remarks during an interview with journalist Stephen A. Smith.

Asked why the United States had not yet brought the conflict with Iran to an end, Trump said he could do so immediately but had chosen a more restrained approach out of consideration for regional allies.

“I could end it immediately. At the request of the countries I’m trying to protect, we’ve taken a somewhat longer and somewhat more civilized path. Saudi Arabia asked me, ‘Please leave things as they are for a while,’” he said.

According to Trump, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates made similar requests.

The president stressed that without those appeals, Washington would have taken much more extensive military action against Iran.

“We’ve already gone very far. We’ve struck them, but for the most part, we’ve left the bridges alone. We destroyed one major bridge because they were behaving very badly, but we spared their electricity infrastructure and industrial capacity. We haven’t attacked their energy sector at all,” Trump said.

At the same time, Trump said he would have no hesitation about resuming strikes against Iran if he deemed it necessary.

“If I saw things going differently, I would do it. I might even do it right now,” he told Salem News Channel.

He said he believed that, currently, “things are going very well.”

Nevertheless, Trump noted that he would consider it a defeat if Iran’s current government remained in power through the end of his presidential term.

Asked what would happen if Tehran killed a US official, Trump responded: “They would no longer exist.”