Donald Trump has vowed to put US troops on the ground in Iran while warning about future strikes: “The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.” Speaking on Monday (March 2), the US President said he would allow for US service members to enter Iran “if they were necessary”.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” he told the New York Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary'”. In a separate interview, Mr Trump alluded to major future action in Iran. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” he told CNN. “The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.”

THIS IS A BREAKING STORY. MORE TO FOLLOW…

However, the US President did not expand on, or clarify, what the “big wave” could entail, or whether it would explicitly include sending US ground forces into Iran.

Mr Trump also spoke defiantly about the possible political consequences of putting US boots on the ground in Iran. He told the New York Post: “I don’t care about polling”.

“Look, whether polling is low or not, I think the polling is probably fine. But it’s not a question of polling. You cannot let Iran, who’s a nation that has been run by crazy people, have a nuclear weapon,” Mr Trump said.

*** Ensure our latest news headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings. ***

This comes as Mr Trump’s Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, also left the door open to sending US ground forces into Iran during a Pentagon press conference on Monday. When asked about whether there are currently troops in Iran, Mr Hegseth replied: “No, but we’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do”.

“I think it’s one of those fallacies for a long time that this department or presidents or others should tell the American enemies, by the way, here’s exactly what, here’s exactly how long we’ll go, here’s exactly how far we’ll go, here’s what we’re willing to do and not do – it’s foolishness,” he added.

On Saturday (February 28), the US and Israel dropped dozens of aerial bombs on the residence of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killing him alongside the country’s top command, in an offensive titled Operation Epic Fury. In response, Tehran launched large-scale attacks with ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones on US bases and territories of US-allied countries in the Middle East, including Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE.