Pentagon chief Pete Hegeth has not ruled out deploying U.S. ground troops in Iran and is unable to say when America’s involvement in the conflict will end.
In a combative and often contradictory press conference, the former Fox News host suggested there was no defined exit strategy, no set timeframe for the operation, and no publicly articulated rules of engagement guiding U.S. forces.
Asked if he planned to put U.S. boots on the ground, an indignant and irritated Hegseth replied: “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 people and our enemies: by the way, here’s exactly how long we’ll go, here’s exactly how far we’ll go.
“We will go as far as we need to go to advance American interests... Why in the world would we tell you, the enemy, or anybody what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective?” he added.
The press conference was the first time Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dan Caine spoke since the U.S. began striking Iran overnight on Saturday.
At least four U.S. service members have been killed as part of the conflict, which Donald Trump announced in an eight minute video posted to his Truth Social account shortly after he was seen partying at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it,” Hegseth bizarrely claimed on Monday.
He also declared that Trump would not be bound by “stupid rules engagement” and that “we set the terms of this war from start to finish.”
“No nation-building quagmires, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars,” he said.
“Operation Epic Fury is laser focused: destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and ensure they will never have nuclear weapons.”
But lawmakers from both parties have publicly questioned the administration’s failure to obtain formal congressional authorization for the operation, which violates the Constitution.
In closed-door briefings with congressional staff this weekend, Pentagon officials even acknowledged there was no intelligence indicating that Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against U.S. forces before the U.S. and Israeli attacks.
“We still haven’t been provided any rationale that actually makes sense in terms of protecting American people,” Democrat Hakeem Jeffries told CNN.
Hegseth’s comments about boots on the ground are likely to infuriate MAGA world, some of whom were prepared to stomach the intervention provided U.S. troops were not forced into ground operations.
But despite being unable to articulate a clear time frame or exit strategy, he scoffed at comparisons to the Iraq war.
That conflict also began on dubious terms, with George W. Bush claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and presented a threat to America’s national security. In the end, no WMDs were found.
Over the years, Trump has used the Iraq war to promise his “America First” base he would not get involved in such foreign entanglements.
“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” Hegseth insisted. “I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president.”
Since launching the attack, the president has offered conflicting visions of how the war could end and who should take over in Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s autocratic supreme leader, was killed on Saturday.
He also admitted on Sunday that the U.S. had a number of candidates in mind to take over Iran following the death of Khamenei, but that they had died in the initial strikes on the country.
Four American soldiers have died, while three U.S. jets have also been shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses in what the U.S. military called an “apparent friendly fire incident,” with the crew members brought to safety.
The latest U.S. casualty, who was not named, “was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks, eventually succumbed to their injuries,” U.S. Central Command announced on social media on Monday.
“We expect to take additional losses,” General Caine said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s leaders have remained defiant. Speaking on CNN, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said the regime would “defend ourselves to the best of our ability.”
“Time is not of the essence,” he said. “We will do whatever necessary to protect our sovereignty and our people—no matter what.”
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Hegseth was setting expectations of a longer war because it was clear Iran’s strategy had shifted.
“They were targeting Israel, but the real target now is the United States,” he said in a briefing call with the Daily Beast.
“They have concluded that this war will only end once the pain tolerance of the United States has been reached… Their calculation, their metric of success, is not that they necessarily can win the war. They just need to get as close as possible to destroy Trump’s presidency before they lose the war.”
