How the war in Iran is going, and what the ultimate goal is, depends on the day, the hour and which administration official is speaking at that moment.
President Donald Trump initially said the strikes constituted “major combat operations” that would likely be over in four or five weeks. But since then, he’s declared that the war is already “won” while also saying the U.S. still needs to “finish the job.” The operations could end “soon” or the military may need to go “further.”
The Trump administration’s decision to strike Iran and enter into a conflict with no solid end date in the early hours of Feb. 28 took many Americans by surprise, coming from a president who campaigned on an “America First” agenda and railed against foreign interventions. While Trump did address Iran in his State of the Union address — saying the U.S. military had “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program” in June — he did not go to Congress for authorization for the war, and he did not spend weeks making the case to the public that the war was necessary.
Instead, the administration now finds itself in the position of having to justify the war to a skeptical public, as Americans are already seeing hits to their pocketbooks from rising gas prices. A new NBC News poll released last week finds that 54% of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling and say the U.S. should not have taken military action.
Asked for comment for this article, the White House referred NBC News to a post on X by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, which said it’s a “fake narrative” that there has been “‘mixed messaging’ about the objectives of Operation Epic Fury.” She said the administration has consistently pointed to the goal of destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilating its navy and ensuring the “regime’s fellow terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region and attack our forces.”
Here’s a look at the Trump administration’s messaging on the war.
Why did the U.S. strike Iran?
March 2: End a 47-year-war. “For 47 long years, the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran has waged a savage, one-sided war against America.” [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth]
March 2: Iran refused to negotiate. “Last June, Operation Midnight Hammer obliterated their nuclear program to rubble. Afterward, we told them plainly, ‘That’s it. Now make a deal.’ They arrogantly refused. We said, ‘Rebuild it and we’ll stop you again, this time, far worse.’ Well, President Trump, Secretary Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, they bent over backwards for real diplomacy, offering pathway after pathway to peace. I watched it. I was there. They tried over and over and over again, earnest attempts at peace. The former regime had every chance to make a peaceful and sensible deal. But Tehran was not negotiating; they were stalling, buying time to reload their missile stockpiles and restart their nuclear ambitions.” [Hegseth]
March 2: Response to Israel planning to strike. “There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we believe they would be attacked — that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded, because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked — and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us — we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage.” [Secretary of State Marco Rubio]
March 2: Nothing to do with Israel planning to strike. “No, I might have forced their hand. … If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.” [Trump]
March 2: Iran would have ‘so many short-range missiles’ in roughly a year. “But this operation needed to happen because Iran in about a year or a year and a half would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.” [Rubio]
Mach 4: Trump had a ‘good feeling’ that Iran would strike. “I think it was important with respect to the timeline, but I think the president, prior to that phone call, had a good feeling that the Iranian regime was going to strike the United States assets and our personnel in the region.” [Leavitt]
How significant is the war?
Feb. 28: ‘Major combat operations.’ “A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. … For these reasons, the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.” [Trump]
March 9: ‘A short-term excursion.’ “We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil. And I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion. … This was just an excursion into something that had to be done. We’re getting very close to finishing that.” [Trump]
What is the goal?
Feb. 28: No nuclear weapons. “It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. … They’ve rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore. Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing the long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.” [Trump]
March 2: Not regime change. “This is not a so-called regime-change war, but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it.” [Hegseth]
March 2: Take out missiles, the navy and the threat of nuclear weapons. “This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission: destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.” [Hegseth]
March 2: Stop Iran from ‘the ability to project power outside its borders.’ “As the secretary laid out, our military objectives are clear: Our mission is to protect and defend ourselves, and together with our regional partners, prevent Iran from the ability to project power outside of its borders, and be ready for follow-on actions, as appropriate.” [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine]
March 2: No nuclear weapons. “Iran can never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. That is the goal of this operation and President Trump will see it through to completion.” [Vice President JD Vance]
March 4: Take out missiles, the navy and the threat of nuclear weapons. “The stated military objectives of Operation Epic Fury are as follows: eliminate Iran’s ballistic missile threat, destroy their naval capability, disrupt missile and zone production infrastructure, sever their pathway and end their pathway to nuclear weapons. And I can report, as you all saw from the Pentagon today, that thus far, this operation has been remarkably successful.” [Leavitt]
March 4: Take out missiles, the navy and the threat of nuclear weapons. “The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure — and they will never have nuclear weapons.” [Hegseth]
March 6: Unconditional surrender. “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE.” [Trump]
March 9: Keep the Strait of Hormuz safe. “So the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain safe. We have a lot of Navy ships there. We have best equipment in the world. Again, most of their ships are down at the bottom of the sea. But we will hit them so hard it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them ever recover that section of the world … do anything.” [Trump]
March 11: Stop Iran from projecting power and keeping the Strait of Hormuz safe. “For years, the Iranian regime has threatened commercial shipping and U.S. forces in international waters. Our mission is to end their ability to project power and harass shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” [CENTCOM Commander Adm. Bradley Cooper]
Is the war over?
March 8: It’s just the beginning. “What I want your viewers to understand is this is only just the beginning.” [Hegseth]
March 9: ‘Pretty much’ complete. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” [Trump]
March 9: Both complete and just beginning. “Well, I think you could say both [very complete and just the beginning].” [Trump]
March 9: Not enough winning yet. “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long running danger once and for all.” [Trump]
March 9: Will go further. “We could call it a tremendous success right now — as we leave here, I could call it — or we could go further, and we’re going to go further.” [Trump]
March 11: U.S. already won. “You know, you never want to say too early you won. We won. The first hour, it was over.” [Trump]
March 11: U.S. needs to ‘finish the job.’ “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.” [Trump]
March 13: Strikes ramping up. “Today will be yet again, the highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran and Tehran. The number of sorties and number of bomber pulses, the highest yet ramping up and only up.” [Hegseth]
How long will the war last?
March 2: Four to five weeks or longer. “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks. But we have capability to go far longer than that. … Somebody said today, they said, ‘Oh, well, the president wants to do it really quickly, after that, he’ll get bored.’ I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this.” [Trump]
March 2: More or less than two, four or six weeks. “President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take — four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up, it could move back.” [Hegseth]
March 2: ‘As far as we need to go.’ “We’ll go as far as we need to go to advance American interest. But we’re not dumb about it. You don’t have to roll 200,000 people in there and stay for 20 years.” [Hegseth]
March 10: It’s up to Trump. “From the beginning, from this podium, we haven’t stated how long it will take. Our will is endless. Ultimately, the president gets to determine the end state of those objectives, right? But what he’s said continually, I want the American people to understand, is this is not endless. It’s not protracted. We’re not allowing mission creep. The president has set a very specific mission to accomplish, and our job is to unrelentingly deliver that.” [Hegseth]
March 10: It’s up to Trump. “We know that the U.S. military and our brave war fighters are quickly and expeditiously executing these objectives well ahead of schedule. But ultimately, the operations will end when the commander in chief determines the military objectives have been met, fully realized, and that Iran is in a position of complete and unconditional surrender, whether they say it or not.” [Leavitt]
March 11: Soon. “President Trump told Axios in a brief phone interview Wednesday that the war with Iran will end ‘soon’ because there is ‘practically nothing left to target.’” [Trump]