Those dreaming of Iran’s unconditional surrender “will take that dream to their graves,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday amid US-Israel airstrikes.
He added that Iran will not carry out attacks or missile strikes against neighboring countries unless an attack against Iran originates from those countries.
Pezeshkian said Iran’s interim leadership council had approved the policy to avoid targeting neighboring states.
He also apologized to neighboring countries, saying Tehran has no enmity with regional countries.
US Representative Pat Fallon said on Saturday that returning to the Iran nuclear deal would be “insane and wrong,” as Iranian authorities are responsible for killing hundreds of Americans.
“The Iranian regime has killed hundreds of Americans and has chosen chaos and destruction at every opportunity,” he wrote in a post on X.
Fallon said Iran had repeatedly chosen violence and should not be rewarded with a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers.
More than 80 Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck Iranian military infrastructure in Tehran and central Iran, the Israeli military said Saturday.
Targets included the IRGC Imam Hossein military university used for officer training and assembly, ballistic missile storage facilities, underground missile command infrastructure, and launch sites in western and central Iran aimed at Israel.
The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is now operating in the Middle East as the US war with Iran enters its second week.
The Pentagon released photos Friday showing Ford and USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) transiting the Suez Canal on Thursday, moving the Navy’s newest carrier into waters where Iran-backed Houthis have previously targeted US and commercial vessels.
The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford transits the Suez Canal, en route to support the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran, in Egypt March 5, 2026. US Navy
President Donald J. Trump oversees Operation Epic Fury at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, March 1, 2026. (White House photo by Daniel Torok)
Donald Trump rapidly shifted the stated objectives of the war with Iran—moving from urging Iranians to shape their own future to demanding the regime’s “unconditional surrender” and signaling he may help decide the country’s next leader, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
"Even as the conflict has escalated into a regional crisis involving more than a dozen countries, President Donald Trump appears to be refining the rationale and endgame of the war on the fly, according to current and former US officials and allied diplomats," the report said.
"It will be impossible to replicate the model in Iran, analysts say. Unlike in Venezuela, where the US was dealing with a hollowed-out petrostate, Washington is confronting an entrenched theocracy backed by a vast security apparatus that is built to preserve the system even after the loss of senior leaders," the report added.
