Pete Hegseth Is Misleading Trump and Us About Iran War

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s relentless claims of an unqualified success in Iran has only put American defenses in jeopardy.The weekend rescue of a downed F-15 crew member stands as proof that America does not have “complete control of Iranian skies,” despite what Hegseth pledged last month. Nonetheless, Donald Trump has unquestioningly regurgitated Hegseth’s militaristic optimism to the nation, fueling concerns that the White House is knowingly feeding misinformation to the American people, reported The Washington Post Tuesday.“Pete is not speaking truth to the president,” one administration official told the newspaper. “As a result, the president is out there repeating misleading information.”On Monday, Trump acknowledged that the fighter jet had been struck by a heat-seeking missile. It was a “lucky hit,” according to the president’s assessment.But the F-15 wasn’t the only U.S. aircraft that got hit last week. Iran also shot down an A-10 attack plane on Friday, though the craft was able to fly back to friendly airspace before its pilots evacuated the vehicle.Kelly Grieco, a military analyst at the Stimson Center, explained to the Post that the loss of the fighter jet is what happens “when you have air superiority but don’t have air supremacy.”“Our air superiority is limited geographically to the west and to south but also in terms of altitude,” Grieco said.Last month, Hegseth claimed that Iran’s missile and drone programs were “overwhelmingly destroyed.” Iranian officials have since disagreed: The country’s new leadership told Pakistan Tuesday that not only did Tehran believe that it was winning, but the country still had tens of thousands more drones and missiles at its disposal. That could boil down to a money and munitions problem for the U.S., which has so far struggled to combat Iran’s Shahed attack drones (which are very cheap and easy to produce) with anything other than the most expensive interceptor systems, such as Patriot interceptor missiles. (The military has so far requested to purchase 3,200 Patriot missiles for the 2027 fiscal year, costing just under $14 billion. The Navy requested hundreds more on Monday.)Nonetheless, the Trump administration has lashed out at any attempt to hold Hegseth accountable for his unfounded comments on the war. In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell referred to criticism of Hegseth’s messaging as little more than “lies and propaganda.”“Secretary Hegseth has provided the Commander-in-Chief with decisive military options to achieve our clear, scoped objectives: destroy Iran’s missile arsenal, annihilate their Navy, destroy their terrorist proxies, and ensure Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon,” Parnell told the Post. “The Washington Post is pushing a fake story of failure.”White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly also insisted that Trump “always had the full picture of the conflict.” “Nothing has surprised him or our military planners, who were prepared for any possible contingency,” she said.But the conflict is far from a success. The administration widely advertised that it planned for the war to last four to six weeks at maximum, but recent escalations have sparked concerns that the situation will devolve into yet another endless conflict in the Middle East. The war is currently in its sixth week.Trump suddenly expressed a renewed interest in ending the war over the weekend, after fears emerged that the oil and gas crisis sparked by the fighting could hurt Republicans at the ballot box come November.The president has demanded that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz—a vital tradeway for the region’s oil and gas—by Tuesday at 8 p.m., or face total annihilation. In a Truth Social post, Trump promised to commit war crimes, pledging that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” should Iran fail to reopen the waterway for trade. The country has so far rejected potential peace deals.