Hegseth says U.S. is ‘accelerating’ war on Iran, but strike at Turkey won’t trigger NATO
U.S. war efforts against Iran are “accelerating” as American and Israeli forces fight for control of Iranian airspace and move inland to seek and destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, senior U.S. officials said Wednesday.
“Four days later, we have just begun fighting,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said.
“The cutoff is coming,” said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
However, Hegseth said Iran’s missile attack on NATO member Türkiye – which was reportedly intercepted by NATO defense systems – is not expected to immediately expand the battlefield by triggering a NATO clause requiring other member states to intervene.
Hegseth struck an unrepentant tone as the United States opened fire on all fronts and piled up victories, including recently against an American submarine, while Iran’s surviving leadership “didn’t know what move to make” after exhausting initial retaliatory strategies devised before the U.S. attack. sinking Iranian warship by a torpedo in international waters, which Hegseth called the first such sinking since World War II.
“We’re just getting started. We’re accelerating, not slowing down,” he said. “We can easily continue this struggle for as long as we need.”
Caine speaks in a much more measured tone At the Pentagon briefingspoke of the “sacrifice” of the six US soldiers killed in the conflict to date and the “clear military objectives” of the operation; these include “eliminating Iran’s ability to project power beyond its borders, both now and in the future.”
And he said the United States had made “steady progress” toward those goals in recent hours. He said Iran’s “ballistic missile launches” had decreased by 86 percent since the first day of the war and by 23 percent “in just the last 24 hours”. He said “one-way attack drone shootings” had decreased by 73 percent since the “early days” of the war.
Caine said this allowed the United States to “establish local air superiority on the southern flank of Iran’s coast and penetrate its defenses with great precision and firepower.” “We will now begin to expand inland, increasingly attacking deeper into Iranian territory and creating additional freedom of maneuver for US forces.”
Hegseth and Caine spoke against a backdrop of increasing destruction in the Persian Gulf region; Iran, which Hegseth acknowledged was a “terrible” enemy, continued to launch a wave of retaliatory attacks, and Israel advanced against Lebanon and Iran-allied Hezbollah fighters there.
According to the Associated Press, U.S. messages about control of the region belied the chaos in many parts of the region; As sirens wailed in Bahrain, global air traffic was in disarray as U.S. and other foreign citizens scrambled to flee the area, and tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global energy flows, was down nearly 90%.
Türkiye’s defense ministry announced Wednesday that NATO air defenses shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran into Turkish airspace; This raised additional questions about the rapidly expanding footprint of the war, given that Türkiye is a member of NATO and is protected by a treaty clause (Article 5) stating that an attack on one member is an attack on all members.
Hegseth said the United States was aware of the attack but did not believe it would trigger Article 5 or force the entire NATO to engage in conflict. Iran has already attracted countries in the Gulf region as it targets US allies and military facilities.
Hegseth brushed aside any US pretense of restraint or measured force; Instead, he called their operation an all-out attack on “radical Islamist Iranian enemies” and suggested that both Democrats and the US media had badly misrepresented President Trump to make him look bad.
He suggested that the US media focused excessively on casualties such as the deaths of US military personnel and did not focus enough on the progress the US had made towards destroying Iran’s military capabilities in a matter of days.
“They’re angry and they know it, or at least they’ll understand it soon,” he said of Iran. “And in just four days, we have just begun to hunt down, dismantle, demoralize, destroy, and defeat their abilities.”
He said the US and Israel would have full control “in the skies of Iran – undisputed airspace” in “less than a week”, which he said would mean “we will fly all day, all night, day and night, find, fix and finish off the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, find and fix their leaders and military leaders.”
“Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” he said. “We’re playing for all of us.”
It was unclear exactly what Hegseth meant by this, given the Trump administration’s constant message that the war against Iran would not be another “endless” U.S. engagement in the Middle East.
Hegseth said the United States uses rules of engagement that are “bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not fetter it.” “This was never intended to be a fair fight, and it’s not a fair fight. We’re punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
Disruptions to tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and their possible impact on global and US gas prices were on Trump’s mind. On Tuesday, Truth Social posted on its platform that the United States would provide wartime insurance for “ALL Merchant Marine” through Gulf shipping lines, as other insurance companies have also initiated. cancel scope – and if necessary, the US Navy will begin to escort the tankers.
“No matter what happens, the USA will ensure the FREE FLOW OF ENERGY TO THE WORLD,” he wrote.
The message immediately caused concern from some of Trump’s political opponents, who questioned the cost of securing U.S. energy shipments around the world, including from rivals such as China, one of the largest buyers of crude oil in the region.
“Very few, if any, of these tankers are coming to the United States,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) wrote to X. “This certainly looks like the United States will subsidize and protect oil shipments to China.”
