Watch: “We’re negotiating with bombs,” Hegseth says of the US air campaign in Iran

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has outlined five goals the United States wants to achieve before ending its war with Iran. Now, while he indicates that the United States may soon “wind down” the operation after three and a half weeks, some of his main goals remain undefined or unachieved.

Watch Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks Tuesday regarding Iran in the video player above.

Trump recently identified five goals for the massive air campaign. This is higher than the four his staff has identified since the start of the war on February 28 (and higher than the three cited by the Pentagon and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in general).

He watches: Trump says Iran wants to reach a “deal” to end the war, but the regime denies that talks and strikes are continuing

Although the Trump administration has said its goals are clear and unchangeable, the list of priorities has expanded and changed as the war has affected the global economy, tested alliances and raised unanswered questions about the planning, justification and consequences of the conflict.

By most reports, strikes by the United States and Israel have dramatically degraded Iran’s military capabilities and killed dozens of senior commanders. But these tactical successes do not necessarily translate into achieving all of the president’s strategic goals.

Some of his goals will be difficult to achieve, and if the United States emerges with incomplete goals and Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps takes power, Trump could face political repercussions at home and global repercussions over what was accomplished in his decision to launch a war of choice that upended the Middle East and ravaged the global economy.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the operation was “a resounding success – the Iranian Navy has been destroyed, their defense industrial base has been dismantled, and their dreams of a nuclear weapon are being shattered by the day.”

Here’s a look at the goals as stated in Trump’s words on Friday and where they stand:

1. “Completely weaken Iran’s missile capability.”

One of the main goals the president has set with Iran is to “destroy its missiles and destroy its missile industry on the ground.”

Management says capacity has deteriorated significantly. But in the fourth week of the war, Iran is still launching missiles and drones, including a series of attacks on Israel early Tuesday after Trump claimed negotiations with Iran were underway.

In an update last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran’s missile and drone programs were “overwhelmingly being destroyed” and that ballistic missile attacks against US forces were “down 90% since the beginning of the conflict.”

Trump on Monday repeated that 90% statistic, saying: “They can’t fire it, they don’t have a lot of it, most of it has been taken out.” He added on Tuesday that 82% of Iran’s missile launchers had been “killed.”

2. “Destruction of Iran’s defense industrial base”

Before Friday, the president and his administration had sometimes listed this as a standalone goal, describing it as one of “destroying their missile industry.” Other times, this fell off the list. The Pentagon has generally included this as the first goal of destroying Iran’s missile capability.

US Central Command said its targets for strikes in Iran include weapons production and missile and drone manufacturing facilities. But Iranian attacks against its Gulf neighbors and Israel continue.

3. “Eliminate their naval and air forces”

The United States and Israel quickly established air superiority in the skies over Iran, flying largely unchallenged. US Central Command said on Monday that the United States had destroyed or damaged more than 140 Iranian ships.

After a US submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in early March, two more Iranian ships – the Iris Bushehr and the Iris Lavan – docked in Sri Lanka and India and requested assistance from both countries. There has been no indication from the United States that they were sunk or captured since then.

The IRGC has its own naval forces that also rely on small ships to conduct swarm attacks and drop mines. It is unclear how much of that force remains or whether any mines have been planted. But Iranian missiles continue to disrupt navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

4. “Never let Iran get close to nuclear capability”

Trump made a remarkable about-face over the past year after declaring that the United States had “wiped out” Iran’s nuclear program in June, only for his aides to warn that Iran was just weeks away from building the bomb to justify current operations.

The United States did not announce new strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, but Israel announced a series of strikes on nuclear-related targets, including the killing of a senior Iranian nuclear scientist.

One of the most pressing questions in the war is whether Trump will seek to seize or destroy about 970 pounds of enriched uranium that Tehran possesses that could be used to make a weapon.

Trump said for the first time on Monday that the United States would recover uranium, which is believed to be buried deep beneath a mountainous facility. But he indicated that this would happen if the United States concluded some kind of deal with Iran to restore it. Experts say that without permission from Iran, seizing it would be a dangerous mission that would involve a large deployment of US forces in the country.

5. “Protecting our allies in the Middle East at the highest levels”

In a social media post on Friday, Trump added a fifth goal for the United States: “Protect our allies in the Middle East, at the highest level, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others. The Strait of Hormuz must be guarded and monitored, as necessary, by other countries that use it — the United States does not!”

The United States already maintains thousands of troops at bases and other facilities in the region, and it is not clear how far Trump is willing to go to protect his allies in the Middle East from threats, and Iran can still attack those countries. It is also not clear how far the United States is willing to go to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Trump has hesitated about whether the United States needs to play a policing role. On Monday, Iran extended the deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on its power plants.

Regime change is not officially on the list

Trump has talked about regime change since the beginning of the war, encouraging the Iranian people to “take over their government” after Israel, with US help, launched strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader and much of the senior leadership.

However, Trump and his administration have never explicitly declared regime change as a goal in Iran, although they have made clear that they want to end the oppressive 47-year rule of the theocracy. “The leaders are all very different from the ones we started with who created all these problems,” Trump said Tuesday. “I guess this was a regime change, right?”

Now the United States claims to be in talks with elements of the Iranian government itself, as it looks to bring a quick end to the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic. It seems that these hopes of the Iranian people will not be fulfilled.

Also on the list: cutting off support for Iranian proxy groups

Trump administration officials have provided few updates on that goal, which the president has described as ensuring “that terrorist proxies in the region can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces” and “ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, finance, and direct terrorist armies beyond their borders.”

While the United States has struck Iranian-allied militias in Iraq, and Israel appears to be expanding operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the administration has not provided details on how to permanently halt Tehran’s support for militant groups.

Associated Press writer Konstantin Torobin contributed to this report.