US President-elect Donald Trump declined to rule out a war with Iran in an interview with Time magazine published on Thursday after repeatedly saying on the campaign trail that he did not seek to overthrow Tehran's theocratic rulers by force.
Trump was asked by a reporter from Time - which for the second time named him as the magazine's person of the year - what the chances of a war with Iran might be and citing allegations by US law enforcement that Iran sought to assassinate him.
"Anything can happen. Anything can happen. It's a very volatile situation," Trump replied, then quickly pivoting toward Ukraine and criticizing a decision by the Joe Biden administration to allow Ukraine to fire US long range missiles into Russia.
Trump lamented Biden policies he said have enriched and emboldened Iran and its armed allies in the region, again saying he would have kept them in check.
"We have some tremendous world problems that we didn't have when I was president. You know, when I left, we had, we had an Iran that was not very threatening. They had no money. They weren't giving money to Hamas. They weren't giving money to Hezbollah."
Trump's pick for national security advisor Mike Waltz on Wednesday credited Israel with weakening Iran by defeating its armed allies - "taking down the tentacles of the (Iranian) octopus" - but the incoming 47th president was appeared more circumspect.
"I don’t trust anybody," he said, when asked if he trusted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Asked about a meeting between world's richest man turned Trump superfan Elon Musk and Iranian diplomats in New York last month which was reported by US media outlets, the president-elect said he had no knowledge of it.
"I don't know that he met with them ... I don't know. He didn't tell me that."
Trump had said on election day November 5 that he wished Iran no harm but that Tehran cannot have nuclear weapons.
“My terms are very easy ... (Iran) can't have nuclear weapons," Trump said. "I’d like them to be a very successful country,” he added, but declined to detail specific plans for US-Iran relations.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to resolve US enmity with Iran through diplomacy and in a pre-election interview appeared to rule out seeking regime change there, saying: “We can't get totally involved in all that. We can't run ourselves".
But Trump in his first term withdrew the United States from an international deal over Iran's nuclear program, saying the Barack Obama-era agreement allowed Iran to shore up its finances and step up aid to armed allies in the Mideast.
His order to assassinate top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in 2020 earned him the lasting ire of Iran's rulers, who according to US law enforcement have been seeking to assassinate Trump and key aides in retaliation.