Trump’s surreal speech on Iran shed no light on his goals | Kenneth Roth

The US president couldn’t give a single coherent reason for why this aggressive war of choice must still be prosecuted

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump">Donald Trump’s self-congratulatory https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/us/politics/trump-transcript-speech-iran.html">speech on Iran on Wednesday night was as puzzling as it was divorced from reality.

I had hoped he would declare victory and end the war.

Some feared he might provide cover for a ground invasion.

Instead, he told us in essence to be patient, that he is almost done, but he was utterly unclear about what more there is to accomplish.

If there was ever a purpose to the war, it was to curtail Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon.

Trump harped on that goal repeatedly in his speech, noting that he had long vowed that he “would never allow https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran">Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

But he didn’t mention that Iran has long agreed to https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/09/1165935">eschew a nuclear weapon.

If that is the only goal, this entire war has been pointless.