Iran ceasefire ‘not over,’ US ‘not looking for a fight,’ Hegseth says after Tehran fires on Gulf

US defense secretary’s remarks follow report that Israel, US planning fresh round of strikes on Iran’s energy sites, senior officials; Trump: Goals would be achieved in 2-3 weeks if war resumes

The ceasefire between Iran and the US “is not over,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday, a day after Iran fired missiles and drones at the UAE and Oman.

The attacks on the Gulf states, a response to an American initiative to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, raised the prospect of renewed conflict. Earlier, an Israeli source told CNN that Israel and the US are coordinating preparations for a potential new round of strikes to squeeze Iran into easing its negotiating position.

“The intention would be to carry out a short campaign aimed at pressuring Iran into further concessions in negotiations,” the source said, adding that the strikes would target energy infrastructure and senior Iranian officials, and were mostly prepared ahead of the ceasefire last month. Iran has previously said it would respond to attacks on its energy sites by targeting similar facilities of US allies in the region.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that if he were to order a return to war against Iran, it would probably take 2-3 weeks to achieve his aims. But Hegseth and Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, signaled that the US wasn’t looking to restart the fighting.

Speaking about the US initiative to help commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which is being blocked by Iran, Hegseth said that “American forces won’t need to enter Iranian waters or airspace.”

“We’re not looking for a fight,” he stressed, adding that “we’d prefer this to be a peaceful operation, but we are locked and loaded to defend our people, our ships, our aircraft, and this mission without hesitation.”

Hegseth also said that Washington plans to “hand over” the effort to secure the Strait of Hormuz “to the world.”

“Hundreds of ships from nations around the world are lining up to go through the strait,” claimed Hegseth, while emphasizing that America’s “iron-clad blockade [of Iranian ports] remains in full effect.”

Caine likewise said at the Tuesday press briefing that Iran’s attacks on US forces have fallen “below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.” He added that US forces are ready to resume major combat operations against Iran if they are ordered to do so.

US Central Command “and the rest of the joint force remain ready to resume major combat operations against Iran if ordered to do so. No adversary should mistake our current restraint with a lack of resolve,” Caine said.

Hegseth: Trump isn’t being ‘pulled in’ by Netanyahu

Hegseth also pushed back on the “false premise that somehow President Trump is being pulled in by Prime Minister Netanyahu.”

He said the US is “grateful for [Israel’s] input, their insights, the existential nature of the threat they face from an Iranian bomb.”

The defense secretary acknowledged that Israel “may have some objectives at times that are slightly different than ours, but there’s only one hand on the wheel ultimately.”

Earlier, speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said: “We’ve taken out much of what we’d have to do, probably another two weeks, maybe three weeks. We either make the right deal, or we win very easily from the military standpoint.”

Trump stressed that “these lunatics will not have a nuclear weapon,” referring to Iran’s regime, and reiterated that any deal must include seizing the country’s stockpile of highly-enriched uranium.

However, Trump downplayed the importance of ending Iran’s ballistic missile program and its funding of terror proxies throughout the region, which are key declared goals of Israel’s war effort. The US and Israel launched the war together on February 28.

He refused to say that Iran would be stopped from funding proxies, only saying that it wouldn’t be in a position economically to do so, as a result of strikes on energy infrastructure.

“Look, missiles are bad, but yeah, and they do have to cap it, but this is about, they cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

The president added that the US is keeping Iran’s conventional army — as opposed to the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — intact.

“We’re not looking to decimate the army,” he said. “We purposefully have not gone after them too much, because we think that they’re much more moderate, actually.” The conventional army, unlike the IRGC, is made up mostly of conscripts.

Iran: US ‘adventurism’ provoked our strikes on UAE

The UAE called Iranian missile and drone attacks on Monday, including one on an energy facility in Fujairah, “a dangerous escalation and an unacceptable transgression.”

Tehran said it had “no pre-planned program” to target oil facilities in the UAE, but it blamed Washington’s attempt to break Tehran’s blockade of the Hormuz Strait for its attacks.

“What happened was the product of the US military’s adventurism to create a passage for ships to illegally pass through the forbidden passages of the Strait of Hormuz, and the US military must be held accountable for it,” an Iranian military official told state TV.

Iran’s attacks against the UAE drew condemnations on Tuesday, as nations lined up to demand a restoration of calm in the region.

“These attacks are unacceptable,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on X, adding that “security in the [Gulf] region has direct consequences for Europe.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also implored Tehran to “return to the negotiating table and stop holding the region and the world hostage,” echoing calls from French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the targeting of civilians and infrastructure was “unacceptable.”

Pakistan, which has been mediating between the US and Iran, and Saudi Arabia also condemned the strikes against the UAE. Saudi Arabia’s condemnation, in a statement from its foreign ministry, came despite increasingly strained relations between Riyadh and the UAE.

Iran parliament speaker warns: ‘We have not even started yet’

Iran’s chief negotiator warned the US on Tuesday against any further escalation in the Strait of Hormuz, after a spate of Iranian attacks against UAE – launched after Trump’s announcement of a program to escort commercial ships through the waterway – drew global condemnation.

“We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America; whilst we have not even started yet,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, also the speaker in Iran’s parliament, wrote in a post on X.

Ghalibaf said the actions of the US and its allies had put shipping security at risk, but said their “malign presence will diminish,” with Tehran vowing not to surrender control of the Hormuz Strait.

Denmark’s freight giant Maersk said on Tuesday that one of its ships had successfully sailed through the Hormuz under US escort, after the US military said that two American-flagged ships had done so on Monday, without providing further information about the vessels’ identities.

The US also said it fired on Iranian forces, sinking six small boats that were targeting vessels. Iran, which had threatened to attack any US forces that approached or entered the trade route, denied that any of its boats were sunk.

It remained to be seen if any more ships would cross the strait on Tuesday.

Ship tracking data showed a Panamanian-flagged crude oil tanker heading toward the center of the strait Tuesday morning after leaving an anchorage in the Persian Gulf, though it was unclear if it would try to pass through. The tanker had a stated destination of Singapore, according to the MarineTraffic ship tracking site.

Iran’s effective closure of the strait, through which about a fifth of the world’s trade in oil and natural gas typically passes, along with fertilizer and other petroleum-derived products, has sent fuel prices skyrocketing, rattled the global economy, and proved a major strategic advantage in negotiations to end the war. Breaking that chokehold would ease global economic concerns and deny Tehran a major source of leverage.