Chapter 1: What reasons did the U.S. give for going to war with Iran?
In the days since the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran, the Trump administration has given a wide range of reasons why the U.S. is now at war. Here's President Trump in an early video message on Saturday addressing the Iranian people. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.
By Monday morning, his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was giving a different reason. This is not a so-called regime change war. But the regime sure did change. And the world is better off for it. Trump's first public comments, not pre-recorded videos on social media, didn't come until two days after the attacks began. At a White House Medal of Honor ceremony, he listed four objectives.
Regime change was not one of them. First, we're... destroying Iran's missile capabilities, and you see that happening on an hourly basis, and their capacity to produce brand new ones, and pretty good ones they make. Second, we're annihilating their navy. We've knocked out already 10 ships They're at the bottom of the sea.
Third, we're ensuring that the world's number-one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon. Never going to have a nuclear weapon. I said that from the beginning. They're never going to have a nuclear weapon. They were on the road to getting one legitimately through a deal that was signed foolishly by our country.
And finally, we're ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders. Consider this — regime change, the nuclear program, terrorism. Why exactly is the U.S. at war with Iran? From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Consider This from NPR. President Trump spoke publicly about the ongoing U.S. military strikes on Iran today.
At the White House, he said this moment was the, quote, last best chance to strike at Iran's nuclear weapons program. Last year, it's worth noting, the president said the program had been completely decimated by U.S. military strikes.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Dan Kaine also spoke today at the Pentagon, updating reporters on the military campaign and its objectives and trying to explain to Americans why the country... is suddenly at war. We are joined now by NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Hi there. Hey, Scott. Hey, Scott.
Franco, I'm going to start with you. This is the first time we have heard from the president beyond posts on social media. What did we learn?
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Chapter 2: What were President Trump's objectives in the military strikes on Iran?
Yeah, he echoed a lot of what we've already heard from him, but he did say that operations would continue for four to five weeks, but they could actually go on longer. And he boasted that operations were actually ahead of schedule because they had expected it would take weeks to eliminate military leadership.
But that was actually accomplished in the first set of strikes, really within the first few hours. And Trump gave a bit more detail on the specific objectives that he says need to be met before stopping the attacks. There are four of them. One is destroying Iran's ballistic missile capabilities. Two is taking out their navy. He noted that they've already sunk 10 ships since the strikes began.
Three is ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. Of course, he has said, and he said again, that the program was obliterated, but that Iran was trying to get it going again. He also accused the regime of playing games with the U.S. during those negotiations. And we thought we had a deal, but then they backed out and 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. And finally, Scott, fourth reason, ensuring that Iran does not continue to fund direct militant proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that fight across the region. Okay. And Tom, what about the Pentagon press conference today? What did that tell us?
Well, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Kaine briefed the press, again, talking about taking out, as Franco said, taking out Iranian missiles, its nuclear program and Navy. Now, there already have been six American soldiers killed in Kuwait by an Iranian missile and as many as 18 wounded.
And General Kaine said this is just the beginning of this operation and also to expect more casualties. Let's listen. This is not a single overnight operation. The military objectives that CENTCOM and the Joint Force have been tasked with will take some time to achieve, and in some cases will be difficult and gritty work.
We expect to take additional losses, and as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses. But as the Secretary said, this is major combat operations. Now, this is a tactical look, Scott, but we're still not getting a sense of the overall way ahead. Hegseth and others said it's not regime change, but this is regime change by the barrel of a gun.
Hill staffers were briefed, were asking, well, why now? What is the imminent threat? They did not get a satisfactory answer. And I'm told lawmakers will get a briefing and will likely have the same questions as well. There are still so many questions here. I'm curious, did anything really stand out to you from the briefing? Yeah. Secretary Hex has said there are no rules of engagement.
And I'm told some people, military people, are outraged by that. There are rules to protect civilians, especially when you're dropping, you know, thousand-pound bombs and missiles fired from ships and aircraft. There are reports that a U.S. missile destroyed a girls' school in Iran, killing more than 100 students.
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Chapter 3: How did Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth describe the conflict with Iran?
Was that addressed by U.S. military officials? Well, it was not addressed by military leaders who, of course, are in charge of the tactical pictures, you know, targets and so forth. We don't have a good sense of who's in charge. A three-person leadership council holds power until a new supreme leader is named, especially expected in the coming days. Mm-hmm. I mean, question for both of you.
You have both covered a lot of similar storylines to this. Any sense of how this plays out? Are there off ramps? Could we still see negotiations? Could this pull the U.S. military into a protracted conflict? I mean, we're all thinking about the recent Iraq wars in previous decades. Well, Iranian leaders are saying they will not negotiate.
They'll continue to resist, continue to attack with missiles. A retired senior officer told me the concern is Iranians have more missiles than the U.S. has interceptors. Also, this is spreading. Already the U.S. has mounted airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and you could see more of that in Iraq and elsewhere.
It's hard at this point to say whether or not this will be a protracted conflict like you saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's no sense any U.S. troops will be heading to Iran immediately. which, of course, would lead to a long and bloody fight. You know, there's really the question about how this plays out politically as well with the midterm campaign season about to kick into high gear.
I mean, if it turns into the protracted conflict, Republicans are worried because they want to shift toward the economy. And Perez Franco-Ordonez and Tom Bowman, thanks to you both. You're welcome. This episode was produced by Lauren Hodges and Karen Zamora with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. It was edited by Andrew Sussman, Patrick Jaron Wadananen, and Courtney Dorning.
Our executive producer is Sam Yannigan. Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Consider This sponsor-free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider This Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.
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