If you tuned in to watch Pete Hegseth’s press briefing after the freshly minted Iran ceasefire, you probably weren’t expecting much.
Seasoned viewers of Iran war updates from this administration know what to expect: teenage fantasy talk that could’ve been copy-and-pasted from the Counter Strike chat feature; desperate sycophantry about how Trump is the best president in the whole world, from any possible timeline; basically no real information, because we can’t let “our enemies” know anything; stuff about how the real enemy is the domestic US media, coupled with attacks on any reporters asking actual questions; and, if you’re lucky, a slip-up here or there that shows what’s really happening behind the scenes.
This briefing had all of the above.
And so Hegseth was at the podium, here to declare that America had won a “capital-V” victory (since apparently we now even speak like Trump’s Truth Social posts, with their distinctly Germanic habit of capitalizing nouns.) “No other president has shown the courage and resolve” of President Trump, Hegseth added, long before he mentioned the military men and women who’d actually put their lives on the line — or lost their lives entirely — to achieve nobody-quite-knows-what.
Indeed, America has now “achieved every single objective, on plan, on schedule,” except long after they said that they would, and also with a fragile ceasefire based on a negotiation that guarantees the US will pay a massive amount of compensation to Iran for all that bombing. But anyway, did you see how brave the commander-in-chief was when he posted genocidal threats on Truth Social?!
Tone-wise, so much of this was once again painfully childish. “Iran begged for a ceasefire and we all know it,” Hegseth told the room, Mean Girls-style. “We own their sky,” he added, a few moments later, whereas Iran was “blowing ammo into fantasyland.”
He rattled through a list of people who are now dead, either assassinated by Israel or killed in American air raids: the former ayatollah, IRGC commanders, intelligence minister, the principal navy commander: “I skipped over a bunch and I could go on and on and on.” Since the US has killed lots of people, Hegseth added, the “new regime” has signed a deal. That’s because “nobody makes a better deal than President Trump” — although, of course, “God deserves all the glory.”
But what of that “new regime,” asked one reporter during the Q&A section? Because of course, Trump has claimed this is a smart and savvy new group of people, completely different to the former Iranian government, whereas it does look very much from the outside like the U.S. managed to replace the Ayatollah Khamenei with another Ayatollah Khamenei.
“Is this not the regime that was at war with us for 47 years?” came the tentative question, referencing Hegseth’s previous claims that America didn’t actually start the war because there had been a secret war going on for almost five decades that none of us realized was happening and was started by Iran.
Well, it’s certainly “a new group of people,” replied Hegseth, underlining once again that lots of others have been killed, “hence why [the new ones] came to the table.” So, if you look at it another way, “the regime has been changed” because “it has a different interaction with the U.S.”
So, OK, it’s not changed changed, as in a different outlook or a different way of governing or a different family in charge or any of those small and insignificant factors. It’s different because it’s the same regime but they agreed to a ceasefire with America after threats (and then declared victory themselves to their own population.)
If you can’t reconcile that reality with the other kind of objective reality you once believed in, then really, that’s your problem. And it absolutely will be your problem, too, because if you’re unfortunate to ask a properly challenging question — as an ABC News reporter did later in the briefing, asking how Hegseth’s claim that Trump “showed mercy” tallies up with Trump’s public threats to quite literally wipe out an “entire civilization” and whether such threats might put Iranians or Americans at risk — then you face the ire of Pete.
“No!” he said loudly, an octave higher than before, before adding: “I try to be nice about what I’m saying up here but you did hear what I said, right?” Even after he seemed to move on, he paused to mutter, “Of course it’s ABC,” as his eyes alighted on the journalist who’d asked the question. General Caine then attempted to address the main points, but Hegseth, still visibly rattled, interrupted him to tell him not to bother since “it was an indictment framed as a question.”
Was that visible embarrassment on Caine’s face at Hegseth’s churlish behavior? Perhaps. It’s certainly getting harder and harder, surely, to stand alongside Daddy War and make his pronouncements look halfway legitimate.
The most telling moments here, buried among the reality-isn’t-real psychobabble, were in the claims about regime change and in the detailing of the rescue of a downed American pilot. Despite having spent weeks carefully dancing around the idea of “boots on the ground” and telling the American public that that would absolutely never happen, Hegseth looked straight into the camera today and repeated the phrase for effect.
Describing how the pilot was rescued, he said, quite plainly and deliberately: “Boots on the ground. A midnight raid right in the middle of their country. Boots — on — the — ground.”
This was presumably intended both as a threat to the Iranians and a bit of light trolling toward those who have silly concerns about things like large-scale Middle East wars and all that. We said we wouldn’t do it, but we did it! And we did it right out in the open! I knew about it and you didn’t! Ho ho, look at us go!
Never mind that ‘we never keep our word on anything’ isn’t the flex Hegseth thinks it is. Never mind that that’s the same kind of semi-strategy that has now alienated former allies across the world. Never mind anything, because Pete Hegseth has something to prove and he will keep coming out and demanding everyone’s respect until they stop side-eyeing each other in the Pentagon hallways and admit that he’s the most warlike Department of War war spokesman ever. War!
Anyway, the Strait of Hormuz is now open (at least temporarily), and the way in which Hegseth delivered this news made it clear that that had been the priority. But right at the end of the briefing, the issue of regime change came up once more, in less than encouraging terms.
“I would love to see the Iranian people to take advantage of this opportunity,” Hegseth said to the room, once again pushing the tired, clearly deluded line about everyday Iranians — the same ones who were slaughtered by the current regime for peacefully protesting just a couple months ago, now further weakened, demoralized and divided by weeks of bombardment from a foreign entity — rising up to overthrow their own government.
It’s an even more unrealistic prospect than it was at the beginning of this campaign, when Israeli intelligence had already assessed that anyone trying to revolt in Iran would simply be “slaughtered” by a regime showing no signs of cracking.
No matter for the “president of peace” (Hegseth’s words, naturally) who, it turns out, won’t kill an entire society of people today. Now, the oil prices are trending down and America is negotiating with the new Khameini, son of the old Khameini, who, it’s clear, is going nowhere. Rise up if you please.
Hegseth walked offstage. Stocks were already soaring.
