Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth alternated between declaring victory in Iran while also pledging to inflict “maximum violence” on the country on Friday, continuing the Trump administration’s split-screen approach that juxtaposes a war that’s already won with continued troop buildups and demands for help from allies.
The contradictory messaging — that the war is won but new fighting may be necessary — has been a hallmark of White House and Pentagon briefings since the opening days of the two-month-old war. But it also serves to highlight the Trump team’s failure to articulate an endgame, particularly as peace talks in Pakistan have foundered and Iran continues to block the Strait of Hormuz.
On Friday morning, Hegseth took the podium at the Pentagon for what has become a weekly press conference alongside Chair of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine. The duo again offered a good-cop, bad-cop contrast, with Hegseth lambasting allies and threatening more strikes, and Caine praising U.S. service members and providing by-the-book operational details.
Hegseth opened his remarks by saying that the operation is not an endless war like Vietnam or Iraq and Afghanistan, all of which dragged on for years amid shifting or unachievable strategic goals.
Despite that, the U.S. has “all the time in the world” to achieve victory, he added.
“The real endless war is the war Iran has waged on the United States for 47 years,” Hegseth said.
For his part, President Donald Trump has said from the start of the war that the U.S. had already won, while also threatening to bomb critical infrastructure and eradicate Iran’s “whole civilization.”
But rather than winding down, the U.S. is sending more forces to the region. A third U.S. aircraft carrier has arrived in the region, along with several ships carrying 2,200 Marines to bolster the 2,200 already deployed in the Persian Gulf.
Just a day ago, Trump again declined to estimate how long he’d be willing to keep up the pace of such deployments, telling reporters at the White House, “don’t rush me,” on ending the war.
“So we’re in Vietnam, like, for 18 years, we’re in Iraq for many, many years,” he said, adding that he feels no pressure to end the war. “I don’t want to rush myself.”
Similarly, on Friday Hegseth rejected the possibility of an open-ended conflict while saying that the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports would continue for “as long as it takes,” and that the U.S. was not “anxious for a deal.” The blockade has emerged as a key sticking point in peace talks, as Tehran insists it must be lifted for talks to resume.
That the blockade has emerged as the focal point of the conflict is an ironic twist, given that commercial traffic flowed through the Strait of Hormuz seamlessly until the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign began Feb. 28.
Trump has declared that the strait is open on multiple occasions, beginning March 9. But he followed that up days later by demanding NATO and China help to reopen the critical waterway, which serves as a conduit for roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil.
Following the failure of initial peace talks, the U.S. Navy began its blockade of Iranian ports April 13, and Trump again claimed last week that the waterway was open.
Despite that, commercial traffic remains at a standstill, and oil prices remain sharply elevated. U.S. military planners have said that Iran is laying sea mines in the strait, and the Navy has begun the painstaking process of finding and potentially removing those mines while also boarding ships attempting to enter or leave Iranian ports.
Hegseth on Friday recognized that commercial shipping through the strait was “much more limited than anybody would like to see,” partially due to Iranian mines, while lambasting NATO allies for not doing more to help.
Angered by NATO allies’ reluctance to get involved, the White House is weighing methods to punish countries seen as unhelpful in the Gulf, while potentially rewarding those that offered to assist.
“Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free riding is over,” Hegseth said.