Hegseth says ‘this is not Iraq’ as Iran strikes fuel regional conflict – National
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday addressed growing concerns that US-Israeli strikes on Iran could devolve into a protracted conflict by saying, “This is not Iraq. This is not over.”
Hegseth, and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held the first news conference of the Trump administration since Saturday’s strikes.
President Donald Trump, while holding several phone interviews with individual reporters, has never taken questions on camera and has released only two videos since taking office.
Hegseth said the program has a “clear, devastating, and decisive mission” to “destroy the missile threat” from Iran, destroy its military and “have no nukes.”
“This is not a war to change the regime, but the regime has changed and the world is better for it,” Hegseth said.
The forum comes as the conflict has escalated into a full-scale war in the region. Iran and its allied armed groups have launched missiles at Israel, Arab countries and US military bases in the Middle East.
Four American soldiers were killed in action. Trump on Sunday predicted that there would be more American casualties.
Caine on Monday said the US expects to have more losses.
“We are sad together with you, and we will never forget you,” he said of the family members of those killed.
The latest sign of the escalating unrest came when the US coalition in Kuwait “accidentally shot down” three US warplanes during a combat operation as Iranian jets, missiles and drones attacked.
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US Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely from the American F-15E Strike Eagles and were in stable condition.
US officials have not offered any exit plan or given signs that the conflict will end anytime soon, and the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei casts doubt on the future of the Islamic Republic and plunged the region into deep instability.
Presenting the case for the strikes, Hegseth pointed to the Iranian regime as having started the conflict since its inception, saying that for 47 years “it has waged a brutal and one-sided war with the United States.”
“Their war on the American people has become our revenge on the Ayatollah and his cult of death,” he said.
He did not point to any imminent nuclear threat from Iran, and said that last summer’s strikes by the US and Israel “destroyed their nuclear program.”
Instead, Hegseth pointed to threats from other weapons such as missiles and drones that enable the operation.
“Iran is building powerful missiles and drones to create a common shield for their nuclear ambitions,” Hegseth said.
He said that during the talks with American officials leading up to the attack, Iranian officials were “standoffish.”
Trump, in an interview Sunday with the New York Times, said the attack could take “four to five weeks.”
The Republican president said the US and Israel have hit hundreds of targets. That includes Israel and the US bombing Iranian missile sites and targeting its navy, saying it destroyed its headquarters and several warships.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 555 people have been killed in Iran so far in the US-Israel campaign. 11 people have been killed in Israel and 31 in Lebanon, according to authorities there.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
