Trump says U.S. military operations in Iran likely to last at least a month

WASHINGTON- President Trump declined Monday to comment on the duration of U.S. military operations in Iran, saying the Middle East conflict could extend from a month to potentially “much longer” as he frames the mission as necessary to eliminate a “colossal threat” to U.S. interests.

“Whatever the moment, it’s all good. No matter what,” Trump said at a White House event. “From the beginning, we planned for four to five weeks, but we have the capacity to go much longer than that. We will get there.”

Hours earlier, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the duration of the military operation remained fluid and that Trump had “all the latitude in the world” to determine how long the war in Iran would last.

“Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could go up. It could go back,” Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.

The Trump administration’s shifting timelines and open-ended goals in Iran have increased uncertainty around an expanding Middle East conflict, especially as U.S. troops have already been killed in combat and officials warn of more U.S. losses.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that additional U.S. military forces were already moving into the region, and warned that the conflict would not be a “single overnight operation” and that he expected “additional casualties.”

A fourth death in the United States

The development came as military officials confirmed that a fourth U.S. service member had been killed by Iranian counterattacks and three U.S. planes were mistakenly shot down in Kuwait in an “apparent friendly fire incident” — and as airstrikes continued to rain down on the Middle East, where missile defense systems were unable to intercept each attack and deaths numbered in the hundreds.

As the United States and Israel continued to strike Tehran and other targets in Iran and Lebanon, retaliatory strikes by Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, were reported in Israel as well as against U.S. facilities and other targets in Bahrain, Cyprus, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, to Iran’s east, Pakistan and Afghanistan were engaged in their own battles, further destabilizing the region.

In addition to hundreds of deaths, including Iranian schoolchildren, other civilians and migrant workers in the Gulf, the fighting has impacted global oil and natural gas production, disrupting tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, at the southern end of the Persian Gulf, and causing oil prices to soar.

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted Iranian drones attacking an oil refinery near Dammam, with the refinery closed as a precaution, the AP reported. Iran has denied targeting the facility.

Air transport disrupted

The war has also disrupted air traffic globally, with major Gulf airports, including Dubai, halting or drastically reducing flights. Travel disruptions reverberated around the world and airline stocks fell.

Israel implemented nationwide restrictions on activities to repel Iranian attacks and residents hid in bomb shelters. Iran reported that strikes on several schools across the country left young students dead.

As the conflict unfolds in real time, Trump and Hegseth have refused to rule out sending U.S. troops to Iran, and the president has signaled that the “great wave” of military attacks is yet to come.

“I have no cries about troops on the ground. As every president says: ‘There will be no troops on the ground.’ I’m not saying it,” Trump told the New York Post on Monday. “I say, ‘I probably don’t need it,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’

When asked by a reporter if U.S. troops were currently on the ground, Hegseth said no, but then bristled with additional questions about possible future deployments.

“Why on earth would we tell you, the enemy or anyone, what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective? Hegseth said.

The Trump administration’s objectives in this war are equally difficult to pin down. Trump said Saturday the operation was aimed at destroying Iran’s military and nuclear capability and dismantling Iran’s theocratic regime, but said Monday the goal was to eliminate threats posed by the “sick and sinister regime” but not the government itself.

Hegseth said the attacks in Iran are not part of a “so-called war of regime change, but the regime has certainly changed and the world is better off today.” Saturday’s U.S. and Israeli attack killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Second or third place is dead”

In an interview with ABC News On Sunday evening, Trump suggested that his administration had considered some names to replace Khamenei, but said those people were now dead.

“The attack was so successful that it eliminated most of the candidates,” Trump said. “It won’t be anyone we were thinking of because they’re all dead. Second or third place is dead.”

The Trump administration’s message, meanwhile, was consistent in its vengeful rhetoric.

Both Hegseth and Trump warned that any threats against Americans would be met with force.

“If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, we will kill you,” Hegseth said.

Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology who teaches courses on Iran and Middle East politics at the UCLA International Institute, said a long-standing misconception in “how the United States views Iran” is the belief that Khamenei was running the country alone and that his removal would create a massive leadership vacuum or a radical change in the country’s politics.

But while Khamenei was certainly an “uncompromising” force in Iran, killing him would not “lead to major change inside the country,” Harris said.

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations, said whether the United States can leave Iran on relatively short notice depends on the willingness of those in power in Iran to negotiate terms that Khamenei and other slain leaders have rejected.

“If the remnants of the regime are ideologically committed to what they were under Khamenei,” Radd said he “doesn’t see Trump backing down” and would expect the war to continue to rage.

Other Iranian leaders are fundamentalist and aligned with Khamenei, but given that the United States has shown its willingness and ability to capture and assassinate foreign leaders, it may back down out of self-preservation.

“In the short term, there should be a wait-and-see approach to what this reconstituted regime will look like,” he said.