Trump says Iran strike would be 'easily won' but wants deal

Magdalena Del Valle, Bloomberg News on Feb 24, 2026

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President Donald Trump pushed back on reports that the Pentagon was concerned that an extended military campaign against Iran could prove difficult, even as he insisted Monday his preference was still to strike a diplomatic deal.

“Everything that has been written about a potential War with Iran has been written incorrectly, and purposefully so,” Trump said in a social media post. “I am the one that makes the decision, I would rather have a Deal than not but, if we don’t make a Deal, it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people.”

The U.S. president also rebutted earlier reporting, including by the Wall Street Journal, that suggested Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine had been underscoring to Trump the risks of such a strike. Trump said the general believes that “going against Iran at a Military level” is something that would be “easily won.”

“He has not spoken of not doing Iran, or even the fake limited strikes that I have been reading about, he only knows one thing, how to WIN and, if he is told to do so, he will be leading the pack,” Trump said in the post.

Tensions continued to run high in the region on Monday. The State Department ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel at the U.S. embassy in Beirut, amid expectations that the U.S. could order airstrikes on Iran even with another round of diplomatic talks this week.

An assessment of the security environment in the region led the U.S. government to reduce its footprint to only essential personnel, a senior State Department official said on condition of anonymity. The embassy remains operational and the measure is temporary, the official added, without mention of Iran.

The U.S. military is assembling a vast array of forces in the Middle East — likely the largest U.S. deployment in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq — including two aircraft carriers, fighter jets and refueling tankers. Trump said on Friday that he’s “considering” limited strikes on Iran and has said Tehran has around two weeks to strike a deal over its nuclear program.

U.S. and Iranian diplomats have been attempting to negotiate a new nuclear deal in recent weeks after Trump pressured Iran into participating with threats of military action.

The president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner plan to travel to Geneva this week for a new round of U.S.-Iran talks on Thursday, a U.S. official said.

The two U.S. envoys will meet once again with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who has repeatedly stressed the possibility of a diplomatic solution despite Trump’s threats.

“I believe that still, there is a good chance to have a diplomatic solution which is based on a win-win game and a solution is at our reach,” Araghchi said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

The ongoing talks have been punctuated by a massive U.S. military buildup in the Middle East, renewed warnings of airstrikes from Trump and new U.S. visa restrictions on Iranian officials over Tehran’s violent suppression of widespread domestic protests at the turn of the year.

Those protests were the original reason Trump gave for a potential U.S. bombing campaign, but the president and other administration officials have offered conflicting public accounts of what they actually want from a new deal with Tehran.

China urged the U.S. to act with restraint, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in a regular press briefing on Tuesday, adding that an escalation “serves no one’s interests.”

Some U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have argued for a deal that includes Iran’s missile program, suppression of protests and support for proxy militant groups across the Middle East — including Yemen’s Houthis and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Others, including Trump, have said a narrower nuclear deal may be enough.

While Trump said Iran had 10 to 15 days to agree to a deal, he may also decide to defy his own time frame, as he did when he ordered a previous round of U.S. strikes in June 2025. He claimed at the time that “key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

Trump could offer a fresh message on Iran during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Witkoff said in an interview with Al-Arabiya that the U.S. president is “curious” as to why Iranian officials haven’t “capitulated” to the increased U.S. pressure by offering concessions on their nuclear program.

Iran experts have argued that bombing the country in the middle of negotiations might derail a deal. It could also prompt a deadly cycle of retaliation that includes pushing proxy groups to attack U.S. military bases or facilities in the region. It’s possible fears of an Iranian or Hezbollah attack prompted the partial evacuation order at the Beirut embassy.

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—With assistance from Kate Sullivan and Allen Wan.