US President Donald Trump on Wednesday told Axios that there's "practically nothing left" to target in Iran, laying the bases to end the war soon, even after reports of the Iranian Regime still having most of its ground forces available.
The Jerusalem Post's Yonah Jeremy Bob reported on Tuesday that the 1,900 to tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers and officials killed since the joint operations began are "a drop in a bucket" compared to the complete forces that the regime has at hand.
In comparison, in his 2021 book Empire of Terror, former senior US Defense Department intelligence official Mark Silinsky estimated that Iran’s military had around 400,000 fighters, that the IRGC had around 125,000, and that the Basij had between 1 and 2 million, of whom 200,000 were hardcore members.
Top Israeli officials hope that the mix of those actual deaths, along with the destruction of so many command centers and the killing of supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and all the top officials who replaced the top officials killed in June 2025, will be enough to weaken the regime in a broad and sustained way, such that the Iranian protesters will have a chance to finally overcome them.
The Axios report also mentions that US and Israeli officials have not been given a clear sign of when the operations will end, while Trump himself said at the beginning of the war that it could take "about four to five weeks" to complete the objectives.
Strait of Hormuz crisis impacts oil prices, reserves
Trump's comments came as Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz by laying submarine mines. The Strait is a key route in the oil economy, through which 20% of global oil passes, and its potential closure has prompted several countries to open their oil reserves.
US Central Command commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, who is in charge of the operations in the Middle East, said that the US is aiming to eliminate Iran's ability to close the Strait at will.
In his dialogue with Axios, Trump also said, "The war is going great. We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period."
"They were after the rest of the Middle East. They are paying for 47 years of death and destruction they caused. This is payback. They will not get off that easy," Trump added.
Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.