Trump on Iran: 'We're Going to Give Them the Hammer'

President Donald Trump told a campaign rally in Iowa on Sunday that Washington has held back from finishing the war with Iran only to spare lives. He warned that the restraint has limits. "The only reason we are not finished with Iran is because I want to be nice. I want to try and save all those lives if I can. But at some point, we're going to have to give them the hammer," Trump said.

Trump also identified further Iranian nuclear facilities as potential targets, among them the suspected underground installation known as Pickaxe Mountain. "We can do that in 10 minutes. We have that planned. You can look at Pickaxe Mountain. We need to take care of that. We can do that very quickly," he said.

The rally came ahead of Tuesday's US midterm elections. On Saturday evening, a senior Israeli official said Israel is preparing for renewed fighting that could begin right after the vote. "It looks like we're heading toward war rather than an agreement," the official said.

Between government formation and the Iranian threat (Photo: Shutterstock/Yonatan Zindel/Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Trump predicted the war would end soon, though he offered no timetable. "It's going to be over very soon. Very soon," he said.

He defended the rise in oil prices as a necessary cost, saying he had expected a much steeper jump and that prices would fall sharply once the fighting stops. "When that war is over, it's going to come plunging. It's a very small price to pay for the security of this country and for the world," Trump said. He again asserted that the American military campaign had stopped Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Before the rally, Trump told RSBN that the confrontation would end through either a deal or more military action. "Either they'll make a deal or we'll just end it," he said.

On Saturday night, he had described the negotiations as "going fine" and said he was not "in much of a hurry" to reach an agreement, while casting doubt on Tehran's reliability. "They make a deal, and then they back out," he said.

Indirect talks between Washington and Tehran continue under Qatari mediation. Reports on Saturday indicated preliminary understandings on Iran's nuclear program, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and possible economic incentives for Tehran. An American delegation was reportedly expected to meet Iranian representatives in Doha.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump in a phone call on Saturday to resume strikes on Iran immediately after the midterms, while Trump preferred to let the diplomatic contacts advance first, JFeed reported, citing Axios.