'Will achieve goals very, very shortly': Trump says US will hit Iran 'extremely hard' for 2-3 weeks

Amid growing public unease over the conflict, Trump asserts that US forces have dismantled Iran’s naval and air capabilities and severely weakened its missile and nuclear programmes.

President Donald Trump has said the United States will intensify its offensive against Iran over the next two to three weeks, claiming that the war is close to its conclusion.

"Over the next two to three weeks, we are going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong," Trump said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday night, adding that the American forces would achieve all battlefield objectives "very, very shortly".

Amid growing public unease over the conflict, Trump asserted that the US forces had already dismantled Iran’s naval and air capabilities and severely weakened its missile and nuclear programmes.

He said the war was nearing conclusion. "Tonight, I'm pleased to say these core strategic objectives are nearing completion," he said.

"We are going to finish the job, and we're going to finish it very fast. We're getting very close."

The conflict, now in its fifth week, has seen shifting timelines and explanations, and objectives from Trump and his advisers.

Trump claims ‘overwhelming’ victory in war

Declaring significant success in war, Trump said: "In these past four weeks, our armed forces have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield, victories like few people have ever seen before."

He went further, claiming: "Tonight, Iran's navy is gone. Their air force is in ruins. Their leaders are now dead. Their command and control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is being decimated as we speak. Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed."

"Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks."

Rising fuel prices is temporary: Trump 

Addressing concerns over rising fuel prices, Trump described the spike as temporary. While he said prices would eventually decline, he stopped short of offering a timeline for ending the war and indicated that US forces could expand strikes to include energy and oil infrastructure if deemed necessary.

"Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home. This short-term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers of neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict," he said.

In his first national address since the start of the war, Trump emphasised that the military campaign was not aimed at securing resources such as oil, but at supporting US allies.

"We're now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet we are there to help," he said. "We don't have to be there. We don't need their oil. We don't need anything they have."

"But we're there to help our allies."

(With Reuters inputs)