Trump Warns Iran ‘Must Make a Deal’ — Hints at Timeline For Possible Attack

 

President Donald Trump spoke at the first meeting of his “Board of Peace” in Washington, DC on Thursday and explicitly threatened Iran, saying that the country “must make a deal” to dismantle its nuclear program.

CBS reported on Wednesday evening that Trump has been told “the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, but the timeline for any action is likely to extend beyond Saturday or Sunday.” The Wall Street Journal detailed the mass movement of U.S. troops into the Middle East, calling it the largest deployment of airpower to the region since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“Now, we may have to take it a step further — or we may not. Maybe we’re going to make a deal,” Trump said during is remarks, adding, “You’re going to be finding out over the next, probably 10 days.”

Trump spoke about Iran in between jokes about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize and hyping his wife’s documentary.

“And, you know, it’s peace in the Middle East. We have peace in the Middle East, think of it. For years, you’ve been hearing about peace in the Middle East and everybody was saying it’s impossible,” Trump said during one of his longer on-topic riffs, adding:

All of these countries are working together around the vision of a Middle East that is free from the curse of extremism and terror. And now is the time, and by the way, even people with extremism and preaching extremism, they’re exhausted. They’re tired. It’s been going on for too many years. I don’t care who you are. They’re tired. They want peace.

And now is the time for Iran to join us on a path that will complete what we’re doing. And if they join us, that’ll be great. If they don’t join us, that’ll be great too. But it’ll be a very different path. They cannot continue to threaten the stability of the entire region, and they must make a deal. Or if that doesn’t happen, I maybe can understand. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. But bad things will happen if it doesn’t. With the commitments announced today, the Board of Peace is proving that it does not just convene countries.

It devises and implements real solutions that happen. We’ve come up with solutions. This is so little talk. This is very little talk, all action. First time, it was always talk in the Middle East. People would talk about peace in the Middle East and then they’d go home and they’d never even think about it again. Nothing would happen. We’re providing a model for how responsible sovereign nations can cooperate to take responsibility for confronting problems in their own regions. The Board of Peace is showing how a better future can be built, starting right here in this room. And I want to let you know that the United States is going to make a contribution of $10 billion to the Board of Peace.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing