US President Donald Trump said Sunday that the strikes against the top leadership of the Islamic Republic effectively amount to regime change, repeating a contention he first expressed upon announcing talks to end the war with Iran.

Trump said that those talks are progressing well, asserting that the Iranians had agreed to most US demands, and confirmed that Tehran would let a number of oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

The broader Islamic Republic regime has not fallen, but Trump appeared to be trying to frame the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of other top officials in air strikes as tantamount to the collapse of the old government.

“The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime — we’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before… and frankly, they’ve been very reasonable,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

The US has been seeking to work with Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, but he is closely tied to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and most analysts view him as no less hardline than those who were unwilling to accept US demands to date.

“It truly is regime change… you can’t do much better than that,” Trump claimed.

As for Mojtaba Khamenei, Ali Khamenei’s son, whom Iranian clerics selected to replace his father as supreme leader, Trump reiterated that he has been incommunicado. “He may be alive, but he’s obviously very seriously… wounded.”

The younger Khamenei was thought to be wounded in strikes on the first day of the war, when his father and other officials were killed.

Over the course of the 20-minute gaggle, Trump offered varying levels of optimism regarding the chances for a deal with Iran.

“We’re doing extremely well in that negotiation. But you never know with Iran, because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up,” he said.

“I think we’ll make a deal with them, but it’s possible that we won’t,” Trump continued. “I do see a deal in Iran. It could be soon.”

Trump went on to claim, without proof, that Iran has agreed to most of the US demands in Washington’s 15-point proposal for a deal to end the war.

Iran has yet to formally respond to the offer, though, even though US negotiators were hoping it would have done so by Friday.

“They’re going to give up nuclear weapons. They’re going to give us the nuclear dust,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium, which experts say have no civilian use and are just a short step from weapons-grade.

“They’re going to do everything that we want to do, [and] they’re going to go on and maybe have a great country again. But if they don’t do that, they’re not going to have a country,” Trump threatened.

Asked about a potential ground operation against Iran, Trump remained non-committal.

He insisted the war is “weeks” ahead of schedule, even though the White House on Thursday again stood by its timeline of four to six weeks to wrap up a war that crossed the four-week mark on Saturday.

However, in an interview with the Financial Times, Trump appeared more open to putting troops on the ground in Iranian territory to seize Iranian oil assets.

Trump said he’d like to “take the oil in Iran,” and mused about capturing Kharg Island.

“To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” he says, likening the situation to Venezuela, where the US captured the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and hopes to exert control over its oil.

He declined to say whether he would approve an operation to seize Kharg Island, the export terminal for 90 percent of Iran’s oil shipments, which could be key to opening up the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has blocked the strait, a key pathway that carries 20 percent of global oil and gas shipments, spiking oil prices and spreading economic pain around the world.

“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump told FT. “It would also mean we had to be there for a while.”

Asked about Iranian defenses there, he said: “I don’t think they have any defense. We could take it very easily.”

The US has already carried out airstrikes it said targeted military positions on the island. Iran has threatened to launch its own ground invasion of Gulf Arab countries and new attacks if US troops land on its territory.

Trump told the newspaper the US has made progress in its strikes on Iran, and again said the US could reach a deal to end the fighting with Iran soon.

Strait of Hormuz passages

Trump said that Iran had agreed to allow 20 ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz in a goodwill gesture.

“They gave us 10” Pakistani-flagged tankers, he told the FT. “Now they’re giving 20 and the 20 have already started and they’re going right up the middle of the Strait.”

The president said it was Ghalibaf who personally approved the ships’ movement.

“He’s the one who authorized the ships to me,” Trump told the newspaper about Ghalibaf. “Remember I said they’re giving me a present? And everyone said: ‘What’s the present?’ … When they heard about that they kept their mouth shut and the negotiations are going very well.”

The comment by Trump was the latest signal by the Americans of Ghalibaf’s importance within Iran’s theocracy.

Ghalibaf has maintained a combative personality through his X account in the war, mocking the Americans and issuing threats. But the former Revolutionary Guard commander has seen his profile rise as senior members of the theocracy have been killed.

Pakistani deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar, whose country is one of the main mediators between the US and Iran, first revealed the gesture from the Islamic Republic, ostensibly aimed at preventing the further rise of oil prices during the war, in a Saturday social media post.

Aboard Air Force One, Trump said those “big boats” will begin passing through Hormuz on Monday and the days that follow.

Asked about Iran reportedly imposing tolls on ships crossing through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump responded, “I have to find out if that’s true.”

“We could close [the Strait of Hormuz] up in two minutes,” he warned.

He went on to insist, without proof, that Gulf states are fighting back against Iran.

Public reporting has shown that the Gulf countries’ responses to Iranian attacks on their territory have been limited to defensive measures aimed at intercepting drones and missiles.

Trump was also pressed on whether he’s satisfied with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who avoided stating that Iran posed an imminent threat before the war, instead telling US lawmakers in congressional testimony earlier this month that only the US president could make that determination.

“She’s a little bit different in her thought process than me. I would say I’m very strong on the fact that I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon… I think she’s probably a little bit softer on that issue, but that’s okay,” Trump said.

Trump’s largely upbeat comments come ahead of the stock market re-opening on Monday morning.

Stocks slumped in Asia on Monday as investors dug in for a protracted Gulf conflict that already has oil prices heading for a record monthly rise, bringing a spike in inflation and the risk of recession to much of the globe. Japan’s Nikkei index was down 4.7%.

Meanwhile, oil prices looked poised to extend their gains, with Brent headed ‌for a record monthly rise. Brent crude futures jumped $3.09, or 2.74%, to $115.66 a barrel ​by 11:53 p.m. GMT after settling 4.2% higher on Friday.

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