Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before the press at the Pentagon on Thursday \u2013 and what followed was less a military briefing than a rhetorical offensive. With General Dan Caine at his side, Hegseth praised the attacks on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities as precise, destructive, and historically significant \u2013 but how much substance lies behind his words remains unclear. Detailed assessments of the actual setback to Tehran\u2019s nuclear program? Nowhere to be found. \u201cWe are talking about one of the greatest, most professional, and most confirming operations in the history of the Pentagon,\u201d President Trump wrote shortly after the appearance on Truth Social \u2013 accompanied by a call to apologize to the U.S. military and fire all members of the media involved in the alleged \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the tone in the room was far from triumphant. While Hegseth emphasized the planning, target selection, and logistical precision of the strikes, he consistently avoided any quantitative assessment. The much-cited intelligence report suggesting that Iran\u2019s nuclear program had only been delayed by \u201ca few months\u201d was merely \u201cpreliminary\u201d and \u201cincomplete,\u201d Hegseth said. The report itself noted that its reliability was low due to missing information \u2013 which is why the media\u2019s fixation on it was \u201cbreathtakingly one-sided,\u201d he claimed. Particularly striking: Hegseth also directed his criticism at his former Fox News colleague Jennifer Griffin, calling her \u201cthe worst\u201d \u2013 someone who deliberately misrepresents what the president says. Griffin had previously asked whether there was any evidence that enriched uranium had even been stored in the bunker that was bombed. Satellite images showed that more than a dozen trucks had left the facility in the days leading up to the strike \u2013 possibly carrying sensitive material. Hegseth responded evasively: \u201cOf course, we\u2019re monitoring every aspect. But Jennifer ...\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House also addressed the question on Thursday of whether the uranium had been removed before the attack. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that there were \u201cno indications\u201d that Iran had evacuated its material before the arrival of U.S. bombs. Trump himself put it more bluntly: The removal would have been \u201ctoo time-consuming, too dangerous, and too heavy\u201d \u2013 and therefore impossible. Meanwhile, Leavitt tried to give the operation a diplomatic angle: the attack had \u201celiminated the immediate threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program\u201d and marked the beginning of a new diplomatic path. But that path is littered with constitutional questions. The Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval for future military strikes against Iran. Some Republicans support the measure \u2013 a quiet rebellion against Trump\u2019s expansive executive authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tensions are also rising in Israel. Although Trump was initially praised by nearly all political factions for the strikes, his subsequent call to \u201csave\u201d Prime Minister Netanyahu from Israeli justice has caused unrest. Opposition leader Yair Lapid called Trump\u2019s interference a \u201cserious assault on Israel\u2019s sovereignty\u201d \u2013 a move that comes in the midst of an ongoing corruption trial. Beyond geopolitical tensions, the domestic situation in Washington is also intensifying. Two key issues in the U.S. Senate \u2013 proposed changes to Medicaid financing and cuts to Planned Parenthood \u2013 were thrown into turmoil by rulings from the Senate parliamentarian and the Supreme Court. Both developments could further upend Trump\u2019s already embattled social budget. Democrats are already calling it a \u201cconstitutional fiasco\u201d that targets the most vulnerable in order to fund the largest tax breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And while the president sports his new favorite shirt emblazoned with \u201cDaddy\u201d \u2013 a mockingly exalted reference to remarks by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte \u2013 preparations continue in Congress for the first classified briefing on the Iran operation. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Hegseth himself are expected to answer questions \u2013 at least from the senators. To the public, the operation remains a puzzle of militaristic press conferences, selective information, and rhetoric that wants to be everything \u2013 except verifiable. What remains is the image of a government that fights reality like an adversary \u2013 with maximum pressure, minimal transparency \u2013 and a defense policy that becomes pure performance the more it ought to explain.<\/p>\n
Verteidigungsminister Pete Hegseth trat am Donnerstag im Pentagon vor die Presse \u2013 und was folgte, war weniger ein milit\u00e4risches Briefing als ein rhetorischer Frontangriff. Mit General Dan Caine an seiner Seite lobte Hegseth die Angriffe auf Irans Nuklearanlagen als pr\u00e4zise, zerst\u00f6rerisch und historisch bedeutsam \u2013 doch wie viel Substanz hinter den Worten steckt, bleibt fraglich. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,7,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dark-america","category-topstory","category-trump-s-world"],"yoast_head":"\n