Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spewed schoolyard-like talk to reporters on Monday when he attempted to portray Iran, and not the U.S., as the country that started the escalating war in the Middle East over the weekend.
Hegseth, in an early morning press conference, claimed that Iran has “waged a savage, one-sided war” for “47 long years” even if the country’s leadership didn’t “declare it openly.”
“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it,” he stressed.
While Hegseth broadly framed the war by pointing to a gaggle of vague examples such as anti-American chants from Iranians and various attacks in countries outside of Iran, a joint U.S.-Israeli military offensive targeting Iran, in fact, led to the deadly events of the past few days in the Middle East.
Elsewhere in the presser, Hegseth piggybacked off Trump’s talk of being hands-off to any potential regime changes in Iran after America’s deadly attack killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it,” said Hegseth, who has insisted the conflict would not morph into a “forever war” like the one in Iraq.
Critics on social media swiftly clowned Hegseth over his whopper of a lie on Iran, including Christian author John Pavlovitz, who wrote on X, “Actually, ya’ll totally started it @SecWar, you unqualified piece of trash.”
The US Secretary of War scrambling to defend the war Washington started — still unable to clearly state the objective.
“We didn’t start this war.” Closing the door on negotiations and launching a war of aggression tells a different story.
“This is not an endless war.” Hard to… https://t.co/kh9qSr3egg
— Ghida Fakhry (@ghida_fakhry) March 2, 2026