On the question of whether there is an opportunity for diplomacy in the coming days, Pete Hegseth replied that Iran has been given several chances through various channels to come to the negotiating table.
They understand exactly what the American attitude is and exactly what steps they can take to enable peace, and I hope they do, he said at a press conference on Sunday.
Trump warned Iran
According to Vice President J D Vance, the US attacks on Iran have delayed the country's opportunities to manufacture nuclear weapons.
We are not at war with Iran – we are at war with Iran's nuclear program, he said in an interview with the TV company ABC.
Even Foreign Minister Marco Rubio emphasizes that the US allows Iran to operate nuclear power plants, but not to enrich its own fuel, he said to Fox News.
After the attacks, President Donald Trump spoke from the White House, where he claimed that the nuclear facilities had been "completely wiped out" and warned the Iranian regime not to agree to peace. He added that the goal was to destroy Iran's enrichment capacity.
Iran: Extremely dangerous
Trump's decision to involve the US directly in the war comes after Israel attacked Iran's air defense and arms factories since the war began last Friday.
Israel has also directed attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities, but only the US is said to have heavy enough bombs to damage the enrichment facility Fordo, which is located deep in a mountain near the holy city of Qom, southwest of Tehran.
The US attack was coordinated, according to Trump, together with Israel.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the attacks that "diplomacy is no longer possible". An adviser to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Sunday evening that US bases in the region are "legitimate targets" for Iran's armed forces.
The US has over 40,000 soldiers in the region who are stationed at several bases.
The US bombed three important nuclear facilities in Iran during the night to Sunday. The operation is called by the Department of Defense "Midnight hammer".
The attack was preceded by a decoy maneuver where heavy bombers of the type B-2 flew over the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, which was picked up and reported in the media.
The real attack came from a group of aircraft that secretly flew east over the Atlantic on the same day and which was refueled several times along the way.
Seven B-2 bombers are said to have dropped a total of 14 super-heavy bombs – so-called "bunker busters" – against the enrichment facilities Fordo and Natanz. At the same time, the nuclear technical center Isfahan was attacked with over 20 rockets fired from an American submarine off the southern coast of Iran.
According to the US, the planes completely avoided the Iranian air defense and the Pentagon states that no Iranian fighter planes were sent up to meet them.
Source: US Department of Defense
