JERUSALEM, Israel – The Trump administration is intensifying pressure on Iran through military force, economic pressure, and growing international support, yet the financial cost is rising steeply.
As the price of Operation Epic Fury climbs to nearly $29 billion, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth defended the Pentagon’s budget request before lawmakers on Tuesday.
This is, admittedly, a historic budget,” he testified. It is a fiscally responsible budget, and it is a warfighting budget.”
Democrats, however, expressed concerns. Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) charged, “You’ve achieved a series of tactical successes but are on the verge of a strategic loss.”
Hegseth argued that the U.S. now has unprecedented leverage over Tehran.
He insisted, “We have the ability to defeat a 47-year threat of a pursuit of nuclear weapons. We have more leverage than we’ve ever had. We’ve had incredible battlefield successes.”
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to receive the latest news from a Christian perspective.***
President Donald Trump is also warning Iran that the time for diplomacy may be running out.
As he left for a summit in Beijing with President Xi Jinping, Trump remarked, “They’ll either do the right thing, or we’ll finish the job.” He added, “I think about one thing: we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”
CNN reports that the president is now more seriously considering a return to major combat operations against Iran. The regime is responding with threats of its own. A spokesperson for the Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission posted on X, “One of Iran’s options in the event of another attack could be 90 percent enrichment (of uranium).”
Meanwhile, Yoni Tobin of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America noted that American forces have redirected 62 vessels trying to break the blockade against Tehran. “It’s preventing Iranian shipments of oil to the Far East, and to China, primarily, which is responsible for the vast majority of Iran’s revenue,” Tobin said.
Hegseth told senators, “But ultimately, we control the Strait because nothing’s going in that we don’t allow to go in.”
British Defense Minister John Healey announced that he is sending the Air Defense Destroyer HMS Dragon, along with Typhoon fighter jets, and high-speed drone boats, to join a multinational defensive mission to secure the Strait.
There are also reports that other Gulf nations have engaged with Iran – both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are said to have delivered military strikes in response to Iranian attacks on their facilities.
