President Donald Trump said Friday that he will know when the U.S. military operation in Iran should end when he can “feel it in my bones,” a remark that comes nearly two weeks after joint U.S. and Israeli strikes began in the region.
Speaking on “The Brian Kilmeade Show,” hosted by Brian Kilmeade on Fox News, Trump suggested the conflict may not last much longer.
“When it’s over –– and I don’t think it’s going to be long –– when it’s over, this is going to bounce back so fast,” Trump said during the podcast interview.
Kilmeade pressed the president on how he would determine when the operation had reached its conclusion.
“When are you going to know when it’s over?” Kilmeade asked.
“When I feel it,” Trump replied. “When I feel it in my bones.”
When asked whether ending the conflict would require a joint decision among administration leaders, Trump praised several members of his national security team, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.
“I’ve got all good people,” the president said. “We’ve got a great group.”
Trump has offered multiple timelines for when the military operation might end. Two days after the initial strikes, he suggested the campaign could last “four to five weeks” or possibly longer. But more recently, the president has signaled that the operation could conclude sooner.
“This was just an excursion into something that had to be done. We’re getting very close to finishing that too,” Trump said Monday during remarks at a House Republican retreat in Miami.
In a separate interview with Axios on Wednesday, Trump claimed that there was “nothing left” to bomb in Iran and that the United States was “way ahead of the timetable.”
“Any time I want it to end, it will end,” he told the outlet.
Later that same day, while addressing supporters at a rally in Kentucky, Trump declared that Washington had “won” in Iran and suggested the conflict was effectively “over.”
Meanwhile, regional reaction across the Persian Gulf has been complex. Several Gulf countries have faced retaliatory attacks from Iran and have expressed anger toward Tehran. However, analysts say the same governments have not embraced the joint operation launched by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, the regional mood reflects multiple layers of concern.
“The mood in the Gulf is three layers, first is rage against Iran, second is dismay with Washington, and third is profound suspicion about Israel’s regional agenda and profile,” Ibish said.
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