Trump in Veterans Day speech says Iran's long, unchecked aggression provoked war, vows over 'soon'

President Donald Trump said Wednesday in a Veterans Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery that Iran started the nearly nine-month-long war between the Middle East country and the United States and vowed it would be over "soon."

"America did not start a war with Iran," Trump said at the 639-acre cemetery in suburban Virginia, maintained by the U.S. Army. 

"Iran has been waging war on America since 1979. They should have been taken care of a long time ago," he also said, reminding attendees of the deadly, 1983 Iran-backed bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. 

"And it was just about time somebody fought back. All of us fought back. We fought back, and we fought back. We won. Now the question is when we want to end. We must have a total victory. Not a 93% victory. It's going to be total."

Trump defended the war nine days after voters swept a historic number of Democrats into Congress, in part, exit polls show, over their dissatisfaction with the war and related higher prices for domestic goods.

He acknowledged in his speech that the war has taken its human toll, including U.S. soldiers who have died.

"We lost 18 beautiful souls," Trump said. "When this conflict is over, and it will be soon, the entire world will be much safer, a better place, more peaceful place and a place without the kind of danger that we had to suffer."