Trump warns of longer US-Israel war on Iran war as conflict spreads

2026-03-03 - 11:03

WASHINGTON/DUBAI — US President Donald Trump warned that his attack on Iran could run longer than a month, as Tehran retaliated to ongoing strikes by targeting US allies in the Gulf and drones hit the US embassy in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Early on Tuesday, two drones, apparently from Iran, struck the US embassy in Riyadh, causing minor damage and starting a fire, and at least eight more drones were intercepted before reaching the city, Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry said. The attack, shortly after the United States urged Americans to flee all Middle Eastern nations from Egypt eastward, sparked a quick vow by Trump to retaliate "soon", without elaborating how. Trump said the war, which began Saturday with a strike that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was going "substantially" ahead of schedule but that the United States was equipped for a prolonged conflict. "From the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that," Trump said at the White House.But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of the conflict lasting years, like previous wars in the region. Netanyahu said he expected the war against Iran was "not going to take years", as the conflict widened with Israel attacking Iran-backed Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and Iran hitting Gulf states that host US bases. "I said it could be quick ‌and decisive. It may take some time, but it's not going to take years. It's not an endless war," Netanyahu said on Fox News' "Hannity" program on Monday. With the war entering its fourth day on Tuesday, explosions shook buildings across Tel Aviv as air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian missiles.New powerful explosions shook windows in Tehran throughout the night as fighter jets flew over the Iranian capital, and the Pentagon said it had achieved air superiority over the country. Beyond launching missile and drone attacks that forced Qatar's state-run energy firm to halt liquefied natural gas production, Tehran also vowed to choke one of the world's most vital shipping lanes. "We will burn any ship that tries to pass through the Strait of Hormuz," Revolutionary Guards General Sardar Jabbari said of the strategic waterway to the Gulf through which about 20 percent of global seaborne oil travels. Israel attacked the complex that houses Iran's state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran and targeted Hezbollah militants in towns across Lebanon.The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Tuesday that its naval forces had destroyed the main command building and headquarters of a US airbase in Bahrain in ⁠what it described as the 14th wave of “Operation Promise of the Truth 4”. The IRGC said in a statement that it had launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on the base in the Sheikh Isa area early in the morning, with 20 drones and three missiles striking their intended targets. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Monday that “the hardest hits are yet to come from the US military” in the offensive against Iran.Asked how long he expected the United States to be engaged in Iran, Rubio told reporters that he did not know, and that he did not rule out the possibility that Trump might deploy US troops to fight a ground war in the Middle East. "We believe the objectives we have set for this mission, the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities, both launch capibilities and manufacturing can be achieved without ground forces," Rubio said. "Right now we are not postured for ground forces. But obviously the president has those options and he is not going to rule out anything."A member of Iran's Assembly of Experts, charged with choosing a new Supreme Leader, said picking Khamenei's successor "won't take long", Iran's ISNA news agency reported. The US military said it had struck more than 1,250 targets in Iran and destroyed 11 Iranian ships. Six US service personnel have been killed so far, all in Iran's retaliatory attacks over the weekend on Kuwait. Kuwait mistakenly shot down three American F-15E fighter jets during an Iranian attack, US Central Command said. All six crew members ejected and were safely recovered. The conflict has thrown global air transport into chaos and shut down shipping ‌through the Strait ⁠of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world's oil trade skirts the Iranian coast, sending oil prices surging. Major Gulf hubs, including the world's busiest international airport Dubai, which usually handles over 1,000 flights a day, remained closed for a fourth day due to the conflict. That has left tens of thousands of passengers stranded as aviation faced its biggest test since the COVID-19 pandemic. Asian airline shares extended losses on Tuesday, with carriers closely monitoring fuel price spikes and many seeing a surge in bookings as passengers switch from Middle Eastern airlines. Global oil and gas shipping rates soared, with supertanker costs in the Middle East hitting all-time highs, after Tehran targeted ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, according to shipping data and industry sources on Tuesday. The US State Department ordered the departure of non-emergency US government personnel and family members from Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan.Trump has said the US faced an imminent threat from Iran that ⁠justified the war, although he gave no specifics and some US lawmakers said he has shown no evidence to back that assessment. Rubio told reporters that the United States acted preemptively because it knew of close ally Israel's plan to strike Iran and knew Tehran would respond, putting US bases at risk. "We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties," Rubio said. In his most extensive public comments so far on the conflict, Trump on Monday said he had ordered the attack to thwart ⁠Tehran's nuclear program and a ballistic missile program that he said was growing rapidly. Commercial satellite imagery has captured what appears to be the first known strikes on an Iranian nuclear site since the start of the war, an independent policy institute said on Monday. Iran has denied it is seeking nuclear weapons and said the US and Israeli assault was unprovoked, occurring as Tehran and Washington were in negotiations on a nuclear accord. Trump withdrew from a prior international agreement curbing Iran's nuclear program during his first term in 2018, three years after it was signed. Trump's assault on ⁠Iran is the biggest US foreign policy gamble in decades and a major political risk for his Republican Party in this year's midterm elections, with only one in four Americans saying they support the Iran attack, according to a weekend Reuters/Ipsos poll. — Agencies