Next days in Iran war will be ‘decisive’, says Pentagon chief Hegseth

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TEHRAN – US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on March 31 that the next days of the Iran war would be “decisive”, while refusing to rule out US ground forces playing a role in the conflict.

Mr Hegseth conceded that Iran retained the ability to retaliate after a month-long US-Israeli bombing campaign.

“They will shoot some missiles; we will shoot them down,” he told reporters at the Pentagon alongside General Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But Mr Hegseth repeated claims that Iran’s military capabilities have been crippled.

“The upcoming days will be decisive. Iran knows that, and there’s almost nothing they can militarily do about it,” he said.

Mr Hegseth said he paid an unannounced visit to the Middle East over the weekend to visit troops at bases around the region. “I witnessed urgency to finish the job,” he said.

He said the US was “closer than ever before to winning”. “We have more and more options, and they have less.”

Asked about concerns among some of US President Donald Trump’s base over the possible use of ground troops in Iran, Mr Hegseth declined to tip his hand.

“You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do, or what you are not willing to do, to include boots on the ground,” he said.

“If we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the President of the United States and this department. Or maybe we don’t have to use them at all, maybe negotiations work,” Mr Hegseth said.

He said talks on ending the war were making progress.

“They are very real. They are ongoing, they are active and, I think, gaining strength,” he said of the negotiations.

A wave of US-Israeli strikes hit military bases, a cancer drug plant and a religious site in Iran on March 31, after Mr Trump threatened to destroy the country’s oil wells and power grid.

Video footage verified by AFP news agency showed at least two massive explosions and columns of smoke in Isfahan, central Iran. State media reported that the Grand Husseiniya, a Shi’ite religious centre, was damaged in Zanjan in the country’s north-west.

The Iranian government also said air strikes hit a pharmaceutical plant producing cancer drugs and anaesthetics, while a Health Ministry official told ISNA news agency that a bombing left a desalination plant on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz “completely out of service”.

It was not clear when the reported strike on the desalination plant took place, but Iran has vowed throughout the month-old conflict to match strikes on its infrastructure with raids on its neighbours.

Desalinated water provides 42 per cent of drinking water in the United Arab Emirates, 70 per cent in Saudi Arabia, 86 per cent in Oman, and 90 per cent in Kuwait.

Any attack on civilian drinking water could trigger a major escalation and draw Iran’s neighbours into the fray, analysts warn. But Mr Trump did not hold back in his latest threat, apparently designed to pressure Iran to capitulate and accept a US-proposed settlement.

Mr Trump warned in a post on his social media site that if Iran does not strike a deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to sea traffic, the US would respond by “blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalination plants!)”.

Nevertheless, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry announced that the Arab monarchies shared a “very unified position in the Gulf on calling for the de-escalation and an end to the war”.

Iran’s Fars news agency also reported explosions and power outages in parts of Tehran, where residents painted a picture of a city that is still clinging to some routine despite tight security.

“When I make it to a cafe table, even for a few minutes, I can almost believe the world hasn’t ended,” said 27-year-old dental assistant Fatemeh. “And then I go back home, back to the reality of living through war, with all its darkness and weight.”

Oil prices again climbed steadily as markets weighed Mr Trump’s confidence that Tehran would soon buckle under military pressure and accept a deal against fears that a possible US ground operation in the Gulf would further escalate the conflict.

Explosions were heard in Dubai and near Erbil airport in northern Iraq.

Elsewhere, sirens sounded in Israel’s capital Jerusalem, and two people were wounded when air defence intervened to intercept a drone near Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, civil defence said.

Israeli emergency services said eight people received minor injuries from falling munitions fragments in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv in Israel. At least 10 blasts were heard in the Jerusalem area after missile launches from Iran were detected.

‘Fog of war continues’

Kuwait’s state oil company reported that one of its giant crude oil tankers was on fire in Dubai Port after a “direct and malicious Iranian attack while in the anchorage area”.

Such attacks on oil tankers and export facilities have world markets jumpy, and all eyes were on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime channel out of the Gulf that Iran has effectively closed to all vessels except those it approves as not hailing from “hostile countries”.

Two Chinese container ships were able to pass the strait, and Beijing expressed gratitude to “the relevant parties”, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told reporters.

World oil prices have surged overall since the US and Israel launched the war more than a month ago with strikes on Tehran that killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But they fall back every time Mr Trump promises a rapid conclusion to the conflict, leaving markets jittery.

“The fog of war continues,” investment adviser Christopher Dembik of Pictet Asset Management said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Trump’s partner in attacking Iran, said more than half of the operation’s military aims had been achieved, but both leaders have refused to put a timeline on the war.

Israel’s military also reported on March 31 that four more of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, where the war has spread and where it is battling Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel’s military would occupy a swathe of southern Lebanon even after the end of the current war against Hezbollah.

“All the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza,” he declared, citing the example of Israel’s last war in the region, which left much of the Palestinian territory in ruins.

The UN mission in Lebanon said that two Indonesian peacekeepers were killed on March 30 when “an explosion of unknown origin destroyed their vehicle”, with two other peacekeepers wounded. Another Indonesian peacekeeper was killed on March 29.

The Israeli military said early on March 31 that it had opened an investigation to determine if it or Hezbollah was responsible for the deaths.

Ready for talks?

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, whose country is acting as an intermediary between Tehran and Washington, was set to travel to Beijing for talks on March 31 on “global issues of mutual interest” with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

Mr Dar hosted foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey in the Pakistani capital on March 29, saying Islamabad was ready to host talks between the US and Iran in the “coming days”.

Mr Trump has claimed to be in direct contact with senior Iranian figures whom he has not identified publicly. AFP