U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Iran has been at war with the United States for decades, telling a Veterans Day audience at Arlington National Cemetery that Washington did not start the conflict.
“America did not start a war with Iran. Iran has been waging war on America since 1979,” Trump said. “We fought back, and we seriously fought back,” he added.
Trump said U.S. forces had already won militarily but that Washington wanted a decisive result. “We want to make sure we have a total victory, not a 93% victory,” he said.
He said it would take Iran 25 years to rebuild what American forces had destroyed and predicted that the conflict would end soon, leaving the world “a much safer and better place.”
Trump also thanked service members working to ensure that “the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never have a nuclear weapon.”
U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday that the American naval blockade had prevented Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from exporting an estimated $30 billion worth of crude oil. More than 1.7 million barrels of oil have passed through the Strait of Hormuz under U.S. protection since summer, according to the command.
“U.S. forces continue to work around the clock keeping the Strait of Hormuz open for commercial shipping, strictly enforcing the ironclad naval blockade against Iran,” CENTCOM stated.
Tehran rejects nuclear material transfer
Meanwhile, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, ruled out transferring any of Tehran’s enriched nuclear material abroad.
“Even the smallest amount of enriched nuclear material will not be taken out of Iran,” he told Lebanon’s Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen channel in an interview published on Wednesday.
Rezaei said Tehran had informed Russia that the material would remain in Iran, claiming it was needed to build nuclear-powered ships and submarines. He also said any end to hostilities must cover all fronts, including Lebanon.
In a separate post on X, he threatened military bases involved in any new American attack.
“If the US launches another war against Iran, every military base involved in the aggression—from West Asia to Europe—will be a legitimate target for Iran’s lethal strikes,” he wrote. “NO SAFE DISTANCE. NO SAFE HAVEN. NO IMMUNITY.”
Israel warns of Iranian missile threats
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday urged international action after Tehran unveiled an underground facility housing ballistic and cruise missiles the previous day. Iranian media released footage showing senior military officials touring the complex.
Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi threatened Israel, saying, “It is clear that we will certainly destroy them,” according to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency.
“The world must take these threats seriously and act before it is too late,” the ministry wrote on X.
Boaz Levy of Israel Aerospace Industries said on Wednesday that Israel was preparing for another war with Iran “with the understanding that it is not a question of if but a question of when.”
“We learned a great deal, but the Iranians learned a great deal too,” Levy told Israel Hayom analyst Yoav Limor at the newspaper’s conference in New York City.
Levy said the Arrow missile defense system had achieved a 92% interception rate against Iranian ballistic missile barrages.
“Nobody in the industry anticipated that hundreds of ballistic missiles would be fired at us within a matter of hours,” he said.
House Republicans condemn U.N. vote
On the diplomatic front, the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday re-elected Iran to the Committee for Programme and Coordination, which reviews and recommends priorities for U.N. programs, including disarmament, counterterrorism and women’s rights.
Iran received 144 votes for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2027. Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee condemned the decision, describing Iran as the world’s biggest exporter of terrorism.
“The United Nations is morally bankrupt: no sane person can take it seriously,” the committee’s Republican majority said.
Also on Wednesday, Iran designated Argentina’s navy and air force as terrorist organizations in retaliation for Buenos Aires’ designation of the IRGC in April, the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced.
Argentina designated the IRGC over Iran’s alleged role, through Hezbollah, in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center bombing, which killed 29 and 85 people, respectively.
