'No Limits' to American Power: Trump Reflects on Iran, Israel, and a Second Term Unlike Any Other

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has declared that Israel would no longer exist had he not withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama, and has described the outcome of the recent US military campaign against Iran as amounting to unconditional surrender — a framing that goes further than the memorandum of understanding the two sides signed to end hostilities.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with Axios, Trump offered his most expansive account yet of the Iran conflict, his vision of global leadership, and what he called the unmatched power of his second administration — a term he insisted is more consequential than his first.

'Israel would have been eviscerated'

The sharpest claim in the interview was the one Trump returned to repeatedly: that his decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the Obama-era nuclear deal he has long called a catastrophe — and his subsequent military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were the only things standing between Israel and annihilation.

"If it weren't for Donald Trump, Israel would have been eviscerated," he said. "Israel would have been gone years ago had I not done that."

Trump argued that under the JCPOA, Iran would have obtained a nuclear weapon approximately five years ago and would have used it against Israel within the first week. He said US B2 bombers struck Iran's nuclear supply approximately 10 months ago, collapsing a mountain on top of enriched material that he said was within one month of weapons-grade completion.

He also claimed that when the conflict began, Iran almost immediately launched missiles at five other countries in the region — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain — a development he said brought all five governments closer to Washington.

On his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said it was good but added a candid qualifier: "We have to keep him a little bit sane." Asked whether he could prevent Israel from attacking Lebanon, he said he was confident he could. "They have a lot of respect for me and they do as I say," he said.

A military campaign Trump calls historic

Trump described the US military campaign against Iran in terms that left little room for ambiguity about how he views its scale. He said the Iranian Air Force — which he put at approximately 200 aircraft — had been entirely destroyed, that 159 naval vessels were sunk, and that Iran's senior leadership had been killed in two and a half rounds of strikes, including what he described as the killing of the Supreme Leader. He said a second Ayatollah, whom he described as a junior figure and the current second-in-command, survived but was badly injured.

He dismissed suggestions that the memorandum of understanding fell short of the unconditional surrender he had originally demanded. "Look, they have no military," he said. "They're all at the bottom of the sea."

Trump also disclosed that for approximately a month and a half, the US had been moving oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz each night starting at 1 a.m., with all lights off and Navy destroyers alongside, after having destroyed Iran's radar and detection systems. He said fleets of between 19 and 25 ships moved undetected on successive nights, and he criticized a newspaper report that revealed the operation as unpatriotic.

He defended his decision not to continue bombing by pointing to economic consequences: oil prices had returned to pre-conflict levels, stock markets had surged, and the Strait of Hormuz remained open to shipping. Continued strikes, he argued, would have closed the strait and risked a global depression. "I never want to be the late great Herbert Hoover," he said.

On Iran's current leadership — the third group to take power since the conflict began — Trump offered a notably measured assessment. "I actually think it's the smartest group," he said, adding that he viewed the change in personnel as effectively constituting regime change, even if the institutional structures of the Islamic Republic remained in place.

The world's greatest leaders — and a warning for Cuba

Ranging across the global stage, Trump named Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the two greatest leaders currently in power, praising both for their discipline, intelligence, and — in Xi's case — their willingness to stay out of the Iran conflict at Washington's request.

"I asked him. I said, 'I'd really appreciate you not getting involved,' and he was great," Trump said of Xi, whom he described as all business, with no small talk and no games. He credited Modi with a different kind of strength — a public calmness that he said masks a genuinely tough character. "He stays out of wars, which is smart," Trump said of the Indian prime minister, who leads a country of 1.5 billion people.

He also praised Pakistani Field Marshal Munir and the Pakistani prime minister for their role in facilitating the Iran deal, saying Pakistan's knowledge of Iranian interlocutors proved valuable.

Trump was asked about Cuba. He described it as a flexible but active file, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio — whose parents are Cuban — was deeply involved, and drew a geographic contrast with Iran, calling Cuba "hopscotch" by comparison. He said Cuba was eager to engage. "Cuba wants to talk very badly," he said. He also reiterated that he viewed the Western Hemisphere as increasingly under American leadership, and recalled the Venezuela operation — which he said lasted 48 minutes — as a model of swift military execution.

A second term, a renovated White House

Throughout the interview, Trump returned to a consistent theme: that his second term is more powerful than his first, driven by experience, by the contrast with what he called his predecessor's disastrous record, and by a clearer sense of how to wield authority.

He dismissed poll numbers suggesting a decline in his standing, called them fake, and said he would defeat any Democratic candidate by 25 points. He said he had more than two and a half years remaining and declined to engage with the premise that any presidency naturally winds down toward its end.

He also disclosed that he was personally funding renovations to the White House, replacing what he described as broken marble and low-quality tile with granite, and constructing a new ballroom featuring bulletproof glass, drone-proof roofing, and a drone port on the roof. He said Apple, Microsoft, and other donors were contributing, and that a judge who had objected to private funding of the project was likely motivated by personal animosity toward him.

The open question of what comes next

Whether the administration's account of the Iran conflict will hold up to independent scrutiny — on the scope of military destruction, the nature of the memorandum, and the precise character of any leadership transition in Tehran — remains a question that analysts and governments around the world are still working to answer. What is clear from the interview is that Trump views this moment as the apex of American hard power in a generation, and intends to use the remaining years of his term to press that advantage further.

Whether Cuba, artificial intelligence regulation, or some unforeseen crisis will define what comes next is the question his second term has not yet answered.