President Donald Trump has declared that the US has effectively won its war against Iran, though not “won enough.”
Speaking to House Republicans in Florida, he said American forces were “knocking them out very quickly” and were “ahead of our initial timeline by a lot.”
He also claimed Iran had been planning to attack Israel and the entire Middle East. “Israel would have been wiped out,” he was quoted as saying.
Minutes earlier, he had suggested the war would end “very soon.” Then he said it would last at least another week.
On the ground, Israel launched new wide-scale strikes against Iran as fighting intensified.
Iran now has a new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, elected more than a week after his father was killed in an airstrike. Tehran insists its missile capabilities are not declining. It says its weapons are growing more powerful.
The war has spread well beyond Iran’s borders. NATO shot down an Iranian ballistic missile after it entered Turkey’s airspace on Monday, the second such interception in a week.
Last Wednesday, Turkey had shot down another Iranian missile that a senior US official said was targeting Incirlik air base, where US and NATO forces are stationed.
The US State Department has since ordered diplomats and their families to leave its consulate in Adana, near the base. Earlier departures had already been ordered from missions in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Lebanon.
Oil route strangled
The war has also strangled a critical oil route. Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz have sent crude prices past $110 per barrel.
Trump posted on Truth Social Monday night threatening “death, fire, and fury” on Iran unless it fully reopened the strait.
French President Emmanuel Macron responded by ordering what he called an “unprecedented” naval deployment there, led by the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.
“Our objective is to maintain a strictly defensive stance,” Macron reportedly said, “to ensure our credibility, and to contribute to regional de-escalation.”
Not every ally is doing their part, according to US Senator Lindsey Graham. He criticised Saudi Arabia for staying on the sidelines.
“Americans are dying and the US is spending billions to dislodge the terrorist Iranian regime,” he posted on X.
“Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia seems to be issuing statements and doing things in the background that are marginally helpful.”
He warned Gulf states: “If not, consequences will follow.”
Pakistan, with no such leverage, is simply trying to keep its energy supply intact. It has deployed navy warships to escort its merchant vessels through the region and closed schools as part of emergency fuel-saving measures.
Meanwhile, the American death toll rose on Monday. Vice President JD Vance received the body of Sgt Benjamin N Pennington at Dover Air Force Base, the seventh US service member killed in the war.
Pennington died from injuries sustained in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base. Six others were killed earlier in an Iranian drone strike on a base in Kuwait.
An Iranian official reportedly said US and Israeli operations inside Iran have caused roughly 1,300 deaths. Iranian strikes across the Middle East have killed more than 30.
The war has also produced a damaging controversy. Trump has repeatedly claimed Iran bombed an elementary school in Minab on February 28, killing 175 people including children.
Video evidence verified by a reputed American newspaper shows a Tomahawk missile hit a naval base near the school. Tomahawks are American weapons. Iran does not have them. US military investigators reportedly believe American forces were responsible.
‘A terrible mistake’
Republican Senator John Kennedy broke from the president on Monday. “It was terrible. We made a mistake,” he was quoted as saying.
“Other countries do that sort of thing intentionally, like Russia. We would never do that intentionally. I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry it happened.”
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