While President Donald Trump focused much of his Wednesday speech at Arlington National Cemetery on praising veterans and thanking them for serving, he still managed to veer into a defense of the war he’s waged on Iran.
After highlighting the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut — for which Iran was found responsible by a U.S. court decades later — and honoring a veteran severely injured in the attack, Trump said in the Veterans Day speech that Iran has been “waging war” on the United States since 1979.
Iran’s actions “should have been taken care of a long time ago,” he said, adding that, when his administration first engaged in the current conflict, “it was about time” the United States fought back.
“We won,” Trump said. “It’s just a question of: When do we want to end it?”
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“We want to make sure we have a total victory, not a 93% victory,” the president continued. “It’ll take them 25 years to rebuild back what we have destroyed, and hopefully we won’t have to destroy any more of that country.”
He then ticked off the list of American wars that brought higher death tolls than the military operation against Iran, including the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan. For each, he also highlighted the yearslong and sometimes decades-long nature of those conflicts.
“We lost 18 beautiful souls, but when this conflict is over, and it will be soon, the entire world will be a much safer and better place,” Trump said.
In contrast with the U.S.’s previous wars was the more recent operation in Venezuela, with Trump saying earlier in the speech that “we won the war in 48 minutes.”
That ended with the United States capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who is in a New York City jail, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio overseeing the country’s finances, according to The New York Times.
In Venezuela, the U.S. is “taking out billions and billions of dollars of oil and all sorts of other things,” Trump said, noting that it will hit “hundreds of billions very soon.”
“To the victor belong the spoils, they used to say, but you can say it again with us,” he added, using a line he’s repeated often in recent weeks.
Trump praised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was in attendance at Wednesday’s event, a day after House Republicans effectively killed an impeachment effort that had been brought against him.
Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who filed the articles of impeachment against Hegseth, has repeatedly challenged the administration’s handling of the Iran war. Trump has referred to Massie as a “loser.”
“He’s done a fantastic job, and he loves you and he protects you,” Trump told attendees of Hegseth. “He’s all about you.”
Arlington National Cemetery has also been at the center of one of Trump’s many beautification efforts in and around Washington: an arch sitting between the cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.
The project faces multiple legal challenges, including from a group of veterans suing to stop the construction and a separate lawsuit that was brought this week by the Kennedy family. The Kennedys say the arch would be a “looming presence” that covers their family’s graves in shadow.
“Soon, we’re going to dedicate a magnificent, triumphal arch to our veterans, and that’s in honor of our great veterans and our great militaries,” Trump said Wednesday. “They’ve been waiting for it for 200 years.”
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