United States President Donald Trump has said the plan for the Iran war initially “projected four to five weeks”, adding the US military has the “capability to go far longer than that”.

Speaking on Monday from the White House, Trump outlined his administration’s justification for going to war against Iran alongside Israel, saying that Iran posed “grave threats” to the US, even as he again claimed that US strikes on Iran in June of last year led to the “obliteration of Iran’s nuclear programme”.

Trump also said that Iran’s ballistic missile programme was “growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas”.

“The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America,” Trump said, repeating a claim his administration has repeatedly made in the run-up to Saturday’s attack, for which US government officials have not provided any evidence.

The statements were significant, with Trump appearing to pivot from claims that Iran posed an immediate threat to the US. Instead, he characterised the Iranian government as potentially posing a longer-term threat.

“The purpose of this fast-growing missile programme was to shield their nuclear weapon development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these – highly forbidden by us – nuclear weapons,” Trump said.

“An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people,” Trump said.

“Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat,” Trump said.

Under both US domestic law and international law, attacks on a foreign country must be in response to an immediate threat. Under the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war, while the president can act unilaterally in response to an imminent threat.

Trump has released two video speeches since the US and Israel began their attacks, including saying in a recorded message released yesterday that Iran had waged a “war against civilisation”.

He also predicted there would likely be more US military personnel deaths after the Pentagon confirmed the first three members of the military killed in the Middle East on Sunday.

To date, at least 555 people have been killed in Iran, 13 have been killed in Lebanon, 10 killed in Israel, three killed in the United Arab Emirates, and two killed in Iraq, with Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait each reporting one death amid Iranian retaliations in the region.

On Monday, shortly after the Pentagon confirmed a fourth member of the US military had died, Trump did not give a clear timeline for the operations.

He said “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.”

Trump added that the military had originally projected four weeks to “terminate the military leadership” of Iran.

To date, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other top officials, including the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have been confirmed killed in US-Israeli strikes.

“We’re ahead of schedule there by a lot,” Trump said.

Trump spoke shortly after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth took questions from reporters for the first time since the attacks began.

Hegseth appeared to respond to concerns from Trump’s own “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement about entering into a prolonged war.

Trump had vowed to end US interventionism during his presidential campaign, promising to focus on domestic needs over adventurism abroad.

“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” Hegseth said.

“This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes,” he said.

“Israel has clear missions as well, for which we are grateful, capable partners,” he said, without defining Israel’s mission.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long called for the toppling of Iran’s government

Hegseth further vowed to fight the war “all on our terms, with maximum authorities, no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars”.

[Aljazeera]