Trump's address on Iran war tonight will lay out timeframe for ending conflict

Washington — President Trump is delivering a prime-time address to update the nation on the war in Iran Wednesday night, as he predicts the operation will continue for a few more weeks and threatens to withdraw the U.S. from NATO. 

Thirty-three days into Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. is already well within the four-to-six-week timeline that the president and his administration had laid out for the joint U.S.-Israeli operation. The president's remarks Tuesday that the U.S. will leave Iran in "two or three weeks" would put the military conflict beyond the high-end estimate of six weeks, despite the president's insistence that the war is ahead of schedule. Mr. Trump has said the war could end sooner if the two sides reach a deal.

A White House official told CBS News the president will restate his two-to-three-week timeline and "highlight the United States military's success in achieving all of its stated goals prior to the operation" — including destroying much of Iran's navy, ensuring Iran's regional proxy groups can no longer destabilize the region and guaranteeing that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. The official said the military operation is meeting or exceeding all of its benchmarks so far.

Still, hundreds of U.S. Special Operations Forces and thousands of Marines and Army paratroopers are now in the Middle East, giving Mr. Trump additional military options in Iran if he chooses to expand the war, sources told CBS News earlier this week. If needed, those forces could participate in operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, target Iran's Kharg Island oil terminal or seize Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium.

Even as Mr. Trump insists a main goal is ensuring Iran never attains a nuclear weapon, he told Reuters he doesn't care about the highly enriched uranium Iran has stored in underground tunnels. If further enriched, the material could be used for nuclear weapons, but seizing such material would likely require a risky U.S. ground operation. The U.S. intelligence community assessed last year that Iran was not actively trying to build a nuclear bomb.

"That's so far underground, I don't care about that," the president said of Iran's enriched uranium, much of which is believed to be buried underneath rubble from a previous round of U.S. strikes last summer. "We'll always be watching it by satellite."

Mr. Trump said he will also mention NATO allies in his speech Wednesday night, particularly his frustration over what he views as their failure to help the U.S. open the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of the world's oil supply. Iran's effective closure of the strait has disrupted the supply of oil and sent prices sharply higher. 

The president said he is "absolutely" considering withdrawing the U.S. from the treaty organization formed in the wake of World War II, in response to allies' decision not to help the U.S. with the strait. 

He told CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang on Tuesday that he's not ready "quite yet" to abandon his attempts to force Iran to open the strait to all shipping traffic. The president said other countries that are reliant on Middle Eastern oil "have to come in and take care of it." 

"Iran has been decimated, but they're going to have to come in and do their own work," he said.

Earlier in the war, Mr. Trump has suggested he may ramp up attacks on Iran and target the country's energy infrastructure if it doesn't allow ships to sail freely through the Strait of Hormuz.  

Meanwhile, the war abroad is affecting prices at home in a time when Americans view the economy as struggling and fear the war will make that worse. The average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. topped $4 this week for the first time in nearly four years. Diesel prices have also soared, and consumer good prices are likely to increase with them. 

A CBS News poll from last month shows most Americans aren't sold on the Iran war, with 60% disapproving of the U.S. taking military action in Iran and 67% saying they are unwilling to pay more for gas during the conflict, though an overwhelming majority of Republicans support the war.

Asked about spiking gas prices, Mr. Trump said Tuesday: "All I have to do is leave Iran, and we'll be doing that very soon, and they'll come tumbling down."