{"id":11967,"date":"2025-06-22T20:46:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T20:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=11967"},"modified":"2025-06-22T20:46:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T20:46:55","slug":"us-leaders-warn-iran-against-retaliation-after-strikes-on-nuclear-facilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=11967","title":{"rendered":"US leaders warn Iran against retaliation after strikes on nuclear facilities"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the hours after its military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, U.S. officials suggested Iran ought to embrace a diplomatic off-ramp rather than choosing to retaliate.<\/p>\n

“Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” President Donald Trump said late Saturday in an address to the nation, flanked by Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n

“This cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” Trump said.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials on Sunday morning doubled down on the president\u2019s message, calling for a diplomatic process and threatening Iran with additional military action should it choose to retailiate for the U.S. attack.<\/p>\n

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, June 22, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Vance suggested the U.S. was not interested in a broader war or a conflict beyond its strikes on the Iranian nuclear program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re not at war with Iran; we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,\u201d Vance said on ABC News’ “This Week.”<\/p>\n

At a Pentagon news conference<\/a>, Hegseth said the nuclear program was \u201cthe line the president set\u201d and that the \u201coverwhelming\u201d military action should invite peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran, in that sense, has a choice,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cBut we’ve made it very clear to them — this is nuclear sites, this is nuclear capabilities. This is the line that the president set, and we set that back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is the time to come forward for peace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The defense secretary did not clarify any potential parameters for negotiations but said the U.S. was sending messages directly to Iran and \u201cgiving them every opportunity to come to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey understand precisely what the American position is, precisely what steps they can take to allow for peace, and we hope they do so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hegseth said the scope of the U.S. attack — which struck three nuclear sites including the uranium enrichment facility located deep underground in Fordo — was \u201cintentionally limited” and not aimed at “regime change.”<\/p>\n

Trump ordered that the offensive “is most certainly not open-ended,\u201d Hegseth said, calling the attack \u201ca focused, powerful and clear mission on the destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose were the targets. That’s what was struck. That was overwhelming,\u201d the defense secretary said.<\/p>\n

Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Sunday that the U.S. was prepared for a potential response from Iran.<\/p>\n

Caine said \u201cany Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks\u2026would be an incredibly poor choice,\u201d and Hegseth noted U.S. and allies\u2019 assets near Iran.<\/p>\n

The secretary said the strikes — which included 14 massive ordnances flown by seven stealth bombers — “devastated” their targets and left Tehran’s nuclear ambitions “obliterated.”<\/p>\n

Caine said a damage assessment was “way too early<\/a>” to report, but said the operation had \u201cseverely damaged\u201d the targeted facilities.<\/p>\n

The president suggested Saturday that Iranian retaliation would amount to an escalation and would warrant U.S. attacks which would be \u201cfar worse\u201d than the strikes on nuclear sites.<\/p>\n

Instead, Trump, Vance, Rubio and Hegseth are signaling to Iran that it should return to the negotiating table to discuss Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

The U.S. and Iran held five rounds of diplomatic talks — with a sixth round scheduled — before Israel<\/a> attacked Iran last week and the U.S. joined with strikes of its own on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is irrelevant to ask Iran to return to diplomacy because we were in the middle of diplomacy,\u201d Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the middle of talks with the United States when [the] Israelis blew it up. And again, we were in the middle of talks and negotiation with Europeans, [which] happened only two days ago in Geneva, when this time Americans decided to blow it up,\u201d he said,\u2013 referencing his hastily arranged meetings with European leaders on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we were in diplomacy. But we were attacked,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Rubio, America\u2019s top diplomat, characterized those talks as delaying tactics by Tehran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey play too many games,\u201d he said Sunday on Fox News. \u201cThey use diplomacy to hide behind and obfuscate and think they can buy themselves time. They think they’re cute, they’re not cute, and they’re not going to get away with this stuff, not under President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio said repeatedly that regime change was not the objective of the attacks, but he suggested a renewed Iranian nuclear buildup would change Washington\u2019s calculus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Iran is committed to becoming a nuclear-weapons power, I do think it puts the regime at risk. I think it would be the end of the regime if they tried to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the hours after its military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, U.S. officials suggested Iran ought to embrace a diplomatic off-ramp rather than choosing to retaliate. “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” President Donald Trump said late Saturday in an address to the nation, flanked by Vice President Vance, Secretary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11969,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967\/revisions\/11969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}