United States Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have said that the US is not seeking to topple the government in Iran via “regime change” and is not at war with the country in the wake of its unprecedented surprise attack overnight on three of Iran’s nuclear sites.
The comments on Sunday followed Washington, DC joining Israel’s strikes on its arch-foe, which have been met by daily retaliatory strikes from Iran and are now in their 10th day.
Vance said on Sunday that the US had successfully set back Iran’s nuclear programme, adding that US President Donald Trump now hopes to pursue a diplomatic solution.
Speaking on the NBC News show Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, he maintained his country was “not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear programme”.
“We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it’s already been built out. We want to end their nuclear programme,” Vance said, adding: “We want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here.”
Meanwhile, Hegseth claimed the series of US strikes against Iran “devastated” its nuclear programme, as he asserted Washington was not seeking “regime change” in Tehran.
There has been no independent confirmation of how heavily the US strikes impacted the sites, or Tehran’s nuclear efforts, which it has repeatedly said are for civilian purposes only.
The Pentagon chief urged Iran’s leaders to find an off-ramp to the conflict after Trump announced the strikes on a key underground uranium enrichment site at Fordow, along with nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.
Hegseth told a Pentagon press briefing that the operation “did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people”.
“I can only confirm that there are both public and private messages being delivered to the Iranians in multiple channels, giving them every opportunity to come to the table,” Hegseth added in the news conference with General Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“This mission was not, and has not, been about regime change,” he said.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said earlier that the US strikes on his country have blown up any possibility of diplomacy and strongly intimated a response was in gestation.
During an address to a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on Sunday, Araghchi said the US crossed “a very big red line” by attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Trump’s intervention – despite his past pledges to avoid another “forever war” – threatens to dramatically widen the conflict after Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran last week, with Tehran vowing to retaliate if Washington joined in.
The US and Iran had been engaged in multiple rounds of nuclear talks brokered by Oman before Israel launched a strike on Iran, unconditionally supported by the US, earlier this month.
‘Bombers took off from US’
Standing alongside Hegseth, Caine said that an assessment of the destruction sustained at Iran’s nuclear facilities will take time to confirm.
“I think PDA [preliminary damage assessment] is still pending and it would be way too early for me to comment on what or what may not still be there,” he said. He confirmed B-2 bombers were launched from the US on Friday for an 18-hour flight to their targets for the “strike package”.
“Operation Midnight Hammer” included several “deception and decoy” manoeuvres. High-speed suppression fire was used to protect the B-2s, and Caine said there’s no indication “any shots were fired” by Iranian defences.
“Iran’s fighters did not fly and it appears Iran’s missile systems did not see us,” Caine said.
He declined to comment on specific moves taken to protect US troops based in the Middle East from potential Iranian retaliation.
“Our joint force remains ready to defend the United States – our troops and our interests in the region,” said Caine.
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, said Hegseth gave a very clear message on behalf of the US that this is not an open-ended operation, although there was a warning that while it is intentionally limited, the capabilities of the US military are not.
“What is clear is this was a well-coordinated operation,” Fisher said.
“But as we heard from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they obviously still have to get full intelligence from the site, and this will take some time,” Fisher said. “So they don’t know whether it has been a huge success. But what it does do is send a real message.”
Separately, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS there were no planned military operations against Iran at the moment.
‘No fatalities’ in Iranian sites
Trump announced that the US forces struck three Iranian nuclear sites in a “very successful attack” overnight into Sunday.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Trump’s decision to join Israel’s military campaign against Iran has escalated an already intensive conflict and threatens a potential all-out regional war.
The head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, said there were no fatalities in the US strikes on the nuclear facilities, according to Iranian state television.
On Saturday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country’s right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme “cannot be taken away… by threats or war”. Tehran denies seeking an atomic bomb.
Trump has stepped up his rhetoric against Iran since Israel first struck Iran on June 13, repeating his insistence that it could never have nuclear weapons. He seemed to be uncertain of whether to move militarily, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have been one of the key voices he was attuned to.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Scott Lucas, a professor of US and international politics at University College Dublin, said the reason Trump decided to strike Iran after appearing to opt for diplomacy until recently was “Because Donald Trump got played by the Israelis; some might say manipulated.”