Speaking to Reuters news agency in a brief phone interview, President Donald Trump said U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were an "amazing success."
"They should make peace immediately. They should stop immediately. Otherwise they'll get hit again," he said.
The U.S. military struck three sites in Iran early Sunday, directly joining Israel ’s war aimed at decapitating the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
Trump was the first to disclose the strikes. There was no immediate acknowledgment from the Iranian government. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that attacks targeted the country’s Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites. The agency did not elaborate.
The decision to directly involve the U.S. in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that aimed to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities.
But U.S. and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.