The White House / Flickr (Left), Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by Prachatai / Flickr (Right)
President Donald Trump, who announced previously in the evening that the US had struck three nuclear sites in Iran, said in an address the night of June 21 that if there is no peace, “there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, Trump said in a post on Truth Social at 7:50 p.m. ET that the US had completed “our very successful attack” on “the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.”
Trump said in his address that the goal for the US military’s “massive precision strikes” was to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and to put “a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror.”
Trump said the strikes were “a spectacular military success.”
“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said. “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”
Trump praised the US military for the operation and said “hopefully we will no longer need their services in this capacity” but noted that the military will pursue other targets if “peace does not come quickly.”
Trump also thanked God in the address.
“I want to just thank everybody, and in particular, God,” he said. “I want to just say, ‘We love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God Bless Israel, and God bless America.”
Trump said he wanted to “thank and congratulate” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We worked as a team, like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel,” Trump said.
Shortly before Trump gave his address, Netanyahu praised him in a video statement, saying that he and the US “acted with a lot of strength.”
“His leadership today has created a pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace,” Netanyahu said. “President Trump and I often say peace through strength. First comes strength, then comes peace.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will hold a news conference at 8 a.m. ET June 22 at the Pentagon, according to Trump.