The Epoch Times

Vice President JD Vance said that he believes the U.S. airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites on Saturday have set back the regime’s nuclear program. “I feel very confident that we have substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon, and that was the goal of this attack. That's why it was a success,” Vance said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” When asked how long, specifically, he thinks the strikes have delayed Iran’s nuclear program, Vance said he’s not going to get into sensitive intelligence, but that it is likely many years. “I think that we have really pushed their program back by a very long time. I think that it's going to be many, many years before the Iranians are able to develop a nuclear weapon,” Vance said. “Our goal is that they're never able to develop a nuclear weapons program, and that is a conversation that we're gonna have” with the Iranians, he added. Prior to the strikes, Israel said that Iran could be just weeks away from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while President Donald Trump had said Iran was weeks to months away from a nuclear bomb.

Vice President JD Vance said he doesn’t think Saturday’s airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites will lead to a bigger war, and that the United States is not interested in sending ground troops. “We have no interest in boots on the ground,” Vance said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I don’t fear that this is going to become a protracted conflict.” He said the B-2 bomber strikes created an environment for a recalibration of relations between the United States and Iran, and suggested there’s still an opportunity for the regime to return to negotiations about its future. “We want to end their nuclear program, and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here,” Vance said. “This is a reset. This is an opportunity for the Iranians to take the smart path. We certainly hope that they will.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is not seeking war with Iran after Saturday’s strikes on three of the regime’s nuclear sites. “As President Trump has stated, the United States does not seek war,” Hegseth said during a Sunday Pentagon press briefing. “Iran should listen to the president of the United States and know that he means it, every word.” When asked if the United States was getting into another “open ended war in the Middle East over weapons of mass destruction,” citing President George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Hegseth said President Donald Trump made it clear that the airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were not an open ended military campaign. “What the president gave us, as I said, was a focused, powerful, and clear mission on the destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities. Those were the targets. That's what was struck,” Hegseth said. “That's what the Iranian regime needs to understand.” He added that Trump wants peace and that Iran needs to negotiate a settlement. “We ultimately demonstrated that Iran cannot have a nuclear capability. That is a very clear mission set on this operation,” he said.