Trump details US objectives in Iran
Trump claims the objectives of the operation in Iran are “clear”.
They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons.
He adds that the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”.
Trump then goes on to cite the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.
And we thought we had a deal. But then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out. I said, you can’t deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.
Key events
US military says six service members killed in Iran conflict
In a statement, US Central Command (Centcom) said that six service members have been killed in action.
“US forces recently recovered the remains of two previously unaccounted for service members from a facility that was struck during Iran’s initial attacks in the region,” Centcom said. “ The identities of the fallen are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.”
House oversight committee releases videos of Clintons’ depositions on Epstein investigation
The House oversight committee has just released the video footage of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s depositions, as part of lawmakers’ ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
The former president and former secretary of state sat individually for closed-door testimony last week before the committee.
The developments on the US-Israel war in Iran risks overshadowing the release of the footage, particularly as top administration officials brief congressional leaders on Operation Epic Fury. Secretary of state Marco Rubio just spoke to members of the press ahead of his meeting with lawmakers.
In a somewhat vague statement before the UN security council, Melania Trump offered her “heartfelt condolences to the families who have lost their heroes who sacrifice their lives for freedom”, without naming a specific conflict, or the US-Israel war on Iran.
She added:
I extend my earnest wishes for a swift and smooth recovery to all those who have been injured. You are in my thoughts and prayers during these challenging times, the US stands with all of the children throughout the world. I hope soon peace will be yours.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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In his first conference since the joint US-Israel operation against Iran, Donald Trump laid out his administration’s objectives moving forward. This includes destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilating their navy, preventing Iran from ever having nuclear weapons, and ensuring the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”. Notably, the president did not urge the Iranian people to push back against their government – something he’s pushed for in recent weeks.
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Speaking today, Trump said that he predicted the war to last four-five weeks but the US has the “capability to go far longer”. In an earlier interview the president also didn’t rule out the possibility of American boots on the ground in Iran. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” the president told the New York Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
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Earlier, in a heated Penatgon press conference, Pete Hegseth initially said that US troops wouldn’t be in Iran, but later said he wouldn’t get into details. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said, while chiding reporters for asking for more clarity on the length of the US-Israel war on Iran. “We have plans,” he said. “But we would never in front of a press pool lay out how long that may take.” He also pushed back against Democratic lawmakers and the media at large. “This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president,” Hegseth said.
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US Central Command also confirmed that a fourth US service member has been killed. A joint statement by Gulf states and the US condemned Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks” across the Middle East and warned that the strikes threatened regional stability.
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Kuwait air defences mistakenly shot down three US F-15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations, the US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday. All six crew members ejected safely, were safely recovered and in stable condition.
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Also today, secretary of state Marco Rubio, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – will brief senior congressional lawmakers on Operation Epic Fury. On Tuesday, top administration officials will address all members of the House and Senate for a Congress-wide briefing.
First lady Melania Trump has arrived in New York, where she will chair a UN security council (UNSC) meeting today. She’s presiding over a summit about education for children living through conflict. This comes as the US-Israel continue their ongoing military action against Iran.
Joining the growing chorus of commentators on the right who question the military action in Iran is Marjorie Taylor Greene – the former Georgia congresswoman who used to be a loyal foot soldier for Donald Trump before breaking with the president last year over several issues (most notably the Jeffrey Epstein files).
“And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right,” Greene said. “We are now a nation divided be those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance.”
The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee –Mark Warner – said that Donald Trump “has ordered military strikes against seven nations since the beginning of his second term” in a post on X. Despite campaigning on a platform to no longer implicate the US in foreign conflicts, Donald Trump’s administration has launched strikes on several countries since he returned to the White House last year, including Iran, Venezuela, Somalia and Yemen.
“Is he still claiming to be the president of peace?” Warner wrote. The Virginia lawmaker is one of the eight members of Congress set to receive a briefing on Operation Epic Fury from top administration officials at 4pm ET.
‘Killing terrorists is good for America’: White House says 49 senior Iranian leaders killed in Operation Epic Fury
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “49 of the most senior Iranian regime leaders” have been killed during the Operation Epic Fury so far. This includes supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
“Preventing this radical regime and its terrorist leaders from threatening America and our core national security interests is a clear-eyed and necessary objective,” she wrote in a post on X.
Lucy Campbell
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte on Monday praised US and Israeli military action against Iran, saying it was degrading Tehran’s ability to get its hands on nuclear and ballistic missile capability, but he said Nato itself would not be involved.
“It’s really important what the US is doing here, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability, the ballistic missile capability,” he told Germany’s ARD television in Brussels.
“There are absolutely no plans whatever for Nato to get dragged into this or being part of it, other than individual allies doing what they can to enable what the Americans are doing together with Israel,” he added. Rutte offered similar praise about the operation during a Fox News interview today too.
Earlier, when Donald Trump addressed reporters for the first time since the US launched a coordinated attack with Israel against Iran, notably he did not urge Iranians to rise up against the government as he’s previously done in recent weeks.
Despite calling out the Iranian regime routinely, Pete Hegseth said that Operation Epic Fury is “not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change”.
Trump also underscored that the main objectives of the US attack are about destroying Iran’s military capabilities, from missiles to the country’s navy, and ultimately preventing them from developing nuclear weapons.
Haroon Siddique
There was consensus among legal experts the Guardian spoke to that the initial US-Israel strikes against Iran were unlawful.
The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the fact that Iran was “planning a bomb” was enough to justify the attacks. Under article 51 of the UN charter there is a right to self-defence in response to an armed attack. A broader interpretation of international law has been that a state has a right to use force in response to an “imminent threat”.
Susan Breau, a professor of international law and a senior associate research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, said: “Even the doctrine of imminent [threat of] use of force is very controversial. Academics are divided on what it actually means. But in this case, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of an imminent threat by Iran.”
Several experts cited Donald Trump’s claim to have obliterated Iran’s nuclear programme last year as evidence that directly countered the suggestion of an imminent threat.
Herzog highlighted Iran’s threats to “annihilate” Israel, but Victor Kattan, an assistant professor of public international law at the University of Nottingham, said: “Having blood-curdling rhetoric or threatening violence in and of itself does not give a state the right to use pre-emptive force.”
Read Haroon’s full report:
George Chidi
At the Third Way conference in Charleston, South Carolina – a meeting of political activists looking to improve Democratic party appeal to moderate voters – attendees are coming to terms with the attack on Iran and how to talk about it.
Michigan’s state legislative delegation sent several members to the conference.
“I would say that I’m not mourning the regime in Iran. The Ayatollah is a maniac,” said Joey Andrews, a Michigan state representative. “These guys just got done slaughtering, 30000 peaceful protesters. But as someone whose formative years in high school and college were during the Iraq war, I’ve got a real reflex that this wasn’t thought out or frankly legal.”
The attack goes against promises Donald Trump made as a candidate in 2024, said Jennifer Conlin, also a Michigan state representative.
“Trump’s said he would not do any kind of regime change when he was at rallies all over the country when he was running for president, and this is truly a violation of everything he said he was going to do,” she said.
State representative Mai Xiong of Michigan said the attack distracts from the pressing concerns of her constituents.
“I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and so I’m thinking about all of the people that are impacted by this conflict,” Xiong said. “There’s a conflict going on there and there are people being displaced, and I’m concerned because we have an immigration crisis in our own country, and we are going into another country, bombing this country, and leaving people in ruins.”
She went on: “I’m really worried about the family members, the children that were killed in the most recent event. … When we have people here in our country, who are struggling with affording healthcare, groceries, we are more concerned about what is happening in another country, and I just think that’s wrong, we really need to take care of our people here in America first.”
Trump recognized three US Army soldiers with the Medal of Honor, with two of the commendations being awarded posthumously.
Trump is now talking about the military personnel being honoured at this medal ceremony. I’ll let you know if he brings up Iran again.
Trump says the country grieves for the four US serviceman who were killed in action, and thanks US service people.
He also briefly segues into a ramble about how much he loves the gold drapes in the East Room and his wife’s feelings about his White House ballroom renovations.
Trump says US’s mission in Iran ‘substantially ahead’
Trump says the US is already “substantially ahead” of its time projections.
He says they projected four-five weeks at the beginning, but adds they have “capability to go far longer”.
He adds that the US had predicted four weeks to terminate Iran’s military leadership, “and … that was done in about an hour, so we’re ahead of schedule there, by a lot.”
Trump details US objectives in Iran
Trump claims the objectives of the operation in Iran are “clear”.
They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons.
He adds that the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”.
Trump then goes on to cite the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.
And we thought we had a deal. But then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out. I said, you can’t deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.
Iran with nuclear weapons would be an ‘intolerable threat’ to Middle East and US
Trump goes on:
An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people.
Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat.
“The purpose of [Iran’s] fast growing missile program was to shield their nuclear weapon development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these highly forbidden, by us, nuclear weapons,” Trump says.
We were the ones that were complaining. We were the ones that wanted it stop. But everybody was behind us. They just didn’t have the courage to say so.