Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Monday that the expanding assault on Iran “is not an endless war,” even as U.S. officials declined to provide a clear timeline for the conflict and announced additional military deployments to the region.
In an appearance on Fox News’s “Hannity,” Netanyahu defended the intensifying U.S.-Israeli campaign, stating that it “will create conditions of peace.” His comments came as Iran retaliated against what the article describes as illegal attacks with strikes on sites in at least nine countries, pushing the Middle East deeper into regional war.
Netanyahu’s remarks closely tracked statements made earlier in the day by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. At a Pentagon press conference, Hegseth rejected comparisons to the Iraq War. “To the media outlets and political left screaming ‘endless wars,’ stop,” Hegseth demanded. “This is not Iraq. This is not endless. Our generation knows better and so does this president.”
Despite insisting the war would not become open-ended, Hegseth did not offer a concrete timeframe for its conclusion. When asked about President Donald Trump’s earlier suggestion that the war could last “four weeks or less,” Hegseth described the question as a “typical NBC gotcha-type” query.
“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take four weeks, two weeks, six weeks,” Hegseth said. “It could move up, it could move back. We’re going to execute at his command.”
Trump himself has described the duration in fluid terms. According to the article, he said the timeline for the war is “whatever it takes” for the United States and Israel to achieve their stated objectives. “Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that,” Trump said.
Administration officials have also signaled that escalation is likely. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that “the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military” and said that “the next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.” Rubio indicated that Trump decided to join Israel in attacking Iran because the planned Israeli attack was likely to spark retaliation against U.S. forces in the region.
At the same press conference where Hegseth addressed reporters, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that additional U.S. forces would be sent to the Middle East. He declined to provide specifics so as not to “tip the enemy off.” Caine also stated that the U.S. expects to “take additional losses.” He underscored the ongoing nature of the campaign, saying, “This work is just beginning and will continue.”
The stated objectives of the operation have varied in emphasis. Hegseth said the goals were to “destroy the missile threats” and to end Iran’s supposed ambitions for a nuclear weapon. He also claimed that “Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions,” and that the country “had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb.”
However, the material provided states that the administration has admitted to members of Congress that neither the missile threat nor the nuclear threat was imminent when the attacks began. Even Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who supports the war, acknowledged limitations in the intelligence he has reviewed. “I don’t have present-day intelligence on what progress they had made toward rebuilding nuclear weapons since we bombed their facilities [last year],” Cruz said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
The US and Israeli strikes also occurred during indirect negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Iranian officials publicly denied pursuing a nuclear weapon. “Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon,” Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said last week, adding that the country is instead in pursuit of nuclear energy sources.
Questions have also emerged regarding whether the war aims include regime change. Hegseth said, “This is not a regime change war,” but acknowledged after the U.S. killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that “the regime sure did change.” President Trump has previously urged political transformation in Iran. In a video message to Iranians after the attacks began, Trump said, “I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment … and take back your country.”
The rhetoric surrounding the rules of engagement has drawn scrutiny as well. Hegseth said the war is being carried out “on our terms,” with “no stupid rules of engagement” holding the administration back. In response, author and journalist Mark Jacob wrote, “‘No stupid rules of engagement’ means no Geneva Conventions or other international humanitarian laws, which the U.S. signed and supported for more than a century,” adding, “Hegseth and Trump are pro-war crimes.”
The human toll has continued to rise. The Iranian Red Crescent said Tuesday that Iran’s death toll from the assault is now close to 800 and counting. The United States has confirmed six deaths from an Iranian strike on a military installation in Kuwait.
The campaign has been conducted “since Saturday without authorization from Congress,” according to the article. Lawmakers have raised concerns about the risks involved. “That we would just follow an ally into a war of choice that puts hundreds of Americans’ lives, if not thousands of Americans’ lives, at risk should be bone-chilling to Americans,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said late Monday.
Netanyahu’s assurance that the assault “will create conditions of peace” echoes a statement he made in 2002 before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when he said that “if you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”
As officials continue to insist the conflict will not become endless, the administration has paired that message with expanded deployments, warnings of harsher strikes, and acknowledgment that additional losses are expected. “This work is just beginning and will continue,” Caine said.
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