Donald Trump refuses to rule out deploying ground troops in Iran

Donald Trump on Saturday left open the possibility of sending US troops into Iran in certain circumstances and suggested they would win a ground war, while at the same time ruling out the possibility of having Kurdish forces in Iraq mount an invasion to take control of Tehran.

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate question,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “There would have to be a very good reason. I would say if we ever did that they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level.”

Pressed by the Guardian on whether he would send in troops to secure the enriched uranium, believed to be stored at Iranian nuclear sites that the United States bombed in Operation Midnight Hammer last year, Trump suggested that was a possibility.

“We haven’t talked about it,” Trump said. “At some point, maybe we will. It would be a great thing. Right now, we’re just decimating them. We haven’t gone after it but something we could do later on. We wouldn’t do it now.”

But the president categorically ruled out using the Kurds to mount an invasion, acknowledging that it would complicate a fraught situation with the spiraling conflict, despite the idea buzzing around Washington after several news outlets reported they had been armed by the CIA.

“I don’t want the Kurds going in” Trump said. “They’re willing to go in, but I’ve told them I don’t want them going in. The war’s complicated enough without getting the Kurds involved.”

Trump’s remarks came hours after he traveled to Dover air force base in Delaware to attend, with JD Vance and defense secretary Pete Hegseth, the so-called dignified transfer of six US service members killed in the opening days of his war against Iran.

The dignified transfer took place under a hazy gray sky that enveloped the entirety of the base and the C17 Globemaster transport aircraft that carried the deceased, a scene only punctuated by Trump’s bright white baseball cap emblazoned with the gold letters “USA”.

Trump saluted each of the six flag-draped transfer cases as he watched two teams carry them into waiting vans. Afterward, he told reporters the moment had not made him think twice about continuing with the Iran war.

“No, we’re winning the war by a lot. We decimated their whole evil empire. It will continue I’m sure for a little while but I’m very proud of the people,” Trump said. Later, he added deaths were “a part of war”.

The conflict has only expanded since Trump gave the green light for the US to join Israel in conducting airstrikes against Iran one week ago, including a series of strikes that killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had been meeting with other top leaders at a compound in Tehran.

In the initial days of the war, Trump suggested in interviews that the campaign would last roughly four weeks. But the administration has since shifted its position, and some officials have warned it could last for months.

Trump was non-committal on how long he expected the war to continue on Saturday, saying he didn’t know. “Whatever it takes,” Trump answered to reporters, even as he later described the war as a “short excursion”.

He also blamed Iran for strikes that destroyed a girl’s elementary school in the south of the country that killed at least 175 people, many of them children. A Pentagon investigation is ongoing but forensic analysis by the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press gave it a high likelihood it was a precision strike by the US that occurred at the same time as attacks on an adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“No, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump said.

After the defense secretary refused to confirm the president was right, saying only that the US was “certainly investigating”, the president repeated his claim. “It was done by Iran. They’re very inaccurate as you know with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran,” he insisted.