On Monday, President Trump wouldn’t take deploying U.S. ground troops to Iran off the table, stating he’d consider it “if necessary” as his administration gave inconsistent timelines for the military operation’s duration.
Trump told the New York Post he doesn’t have “the yips when it comes to boots on the ground” and, unlike past presidents, he wouldn’t completely rule out sending troops to Iran—adding he “probably” doesn’t need them but would if required.
In that same interview, Trump noted the operation was “right on schedule—way ahead when it comes to leadership”—asserting fast progress against Iranian command staff and military facilities.
In his first public remarks about the Iran strikes, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also wouldn’t rule out ground troop deployment during a Monday Pentagon press briefing in Washington, D.C., with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine.
When asked directly if U.S. forces might be sent to Iran, Hegseth called it “foolishness” to expect U.S. officials to publicly state “exactly how far we’ll go.”
“We won’t get into the back-and-forth of what we will or won’t do,” he added.
The remarks come days after U.S. and Israeli forces launched a large-scale military campaign against Iran named “Operation Epic Fury.” The first round of strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, removing the country’s top political and religious leader.
Iranian state media, citing the Iranian Red Crescent, reports at least 555 people have died in Iran from strikes nationwide—including those killed when a girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab was hit. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Monday that Israeli strikes had killed 31 people there.
have been killed so far in Iran’s retaliatory strikes, while 11 people in Israel were reported dead from Iran’s subsequent missile and drone attacks.
‘Ongoing’ or a quick campaign?
President Trump, meanwhile, suggested multiple different timelines for the conflict’s end over the weekend.
When announcing the strikes early Saturday morning, he described the operation as “massive and ongoing.”
“Combat operations are ongoing in full force right now, and they’ll continue until all our objectives are met,” he said in the address—delivered from his Mar-a-Lago home in South Florida—while urging Iranian forces to surrender and asking civilians to rebel against their government.
Shortly after the strikes early Saturday, Trump told an Axios reporter the military campaign might be brief: “I can go long and take over everything, or wrap it up in two or three days.”
But on Sunday, he told the Daily Mail, “It’s always been a four-week process. We expected it to be around four weeks.”
During a Monday Medal of Honor ceremony, Trump repeated the four-to-five-week timeline but noted it “could go on longer.”
“Whatever the timeline is, it’s fine—whatever it takes,” Trump said in remarks at the White House. “From the start, we projected four to five weeks, but we can go much longer. We’ll get it done.”
Trump also spelled out his campaign objectives during the ceremony: destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, “annihilating” its navy, ending its nuclear goals, and “making sure the Iranian regime can’t keep arming, funding, and directing terrorist armies beyond their borders.”
He stated the U.S. is “already way ahead of our timeline projections” but couldn’t give a clear answer on when the military operation would end.
At Monday’s Pentagon press briefing, Caine noted the campaign was “not a one-night operation.”
“The military objectives given to CENTCOM and the Joint Force will take time to accomplish, and some of that work will be tough and gritty.”
Hegseth added he would “never attach a timeline” to the war, noting the schedule “could shift forward or backward.”