Secretary of War Pete Hegseth claimed Wednesday that Iran is under a new regime with a “new calculus” about negotiating with the United States, just a day after President Donald Trump threatened total destruction over the nation’s intractability.
Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday evening, just before the deadline for Iran to agree to terms was set to expire. In a subsequent Truth Social post, Trump stated that Iran has “gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change,” and will now be working closely with the United States. At a Wednesday press briefing, Hegseth was asked about the comments and whether the current Iranian leadership is actually a “new” and different regime than what was in place before Operation Epic Fury.
“Both you, Mr. Secretary, and the President have referred to a new regime in Iran,” the reporter asked. “So, is this not the regime that was at war with us for 47 years and how do we, what do we think of when we’re saying that this is a new regime? What are we thinking and what are we saying there?”
“Well, it’s always been non-negotiable that they won’t have nuclear capabilities and so right now it’s buried and we’re watching it, we know exactly what they have, and they know that, and they will either give it to us, which the president has laid out, they’ll give it to us voluntarily, we’ll get it, we’ll take it, we’ll take it out, or if we have to do something else ourselves like we did in Midnight Hammer or something like that, we reserve that opportunity,” Hegseth responded.
During the opening statement of his briefing, Hegseth listed numerous top officials in the regime who have been killed during Operation Epic Fury, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as senior military commanders and leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iran’s Assembly of Experts named Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei as the Supreme Leader on March 8, but the new Ayatollah has not been seen in public since. Hegseth has described Khamenei as having been “disfigured” in the attacks on Iran, which he reiterated at Wednesday’s briefing.
In a December speech, Hegseth said that the War Department under his leadership “will not be distracted by democracy building interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralizing and feckless nation building.”
During Wednesday’s briefing, Hegseth argued Iran is now led by those who have seen what the American military can do, and has had “different interactions” with the U.S. as a result.
“But what’s clear, what the Iranian, the new Iranian regime knows is they’ll never have a nuclear weapon or the capability to get a path to one,” Hegseth said. “As far as the new regime, you, you heard the list that I read, it’s a new group of people who’ve seen the full capability of the United States military and has a new calculus about what it means to negotiate with us, hence why they came to the table wanting a ceasefire and the shooting to stop. So, this new regime, which — the regime has been changed — has a different interaction with the U.S.”
The New York Times reported that the Israeli government suggested targeting Ali Khamenei, predicting that it would cause the theocratic regime to collapse and enable a secular government to take over.
Despite the announcement of the cease-fire, Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones at multiple countries, including Israel. Trump also announced a 50% tariff on any country supplying Iran with weapons.
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