Tehran and its allies have launched retaliatory strikes against Israel, nearby Gulf nations, and key locations vital to the global supply of oil and natural gas.

The heightened aggression, combined with an absence of a clear resolution strategy, suggests the possibility of a drawn-out conflict with significant global ramifications.

Both Israel and the United States have expressed differing views on the objectives of the conflict and what a potential resolution might entail.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assured that this situation will not mirror Iraq’s invasion over alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking at a Pentagon briefing, he stated, “We did not initiate this conflict, but under President Trump’s leadership, we are committed to concluding it.”

He further emphasized, “This is not another Iraq. This will not be endless.”

“Our generation knows better and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars ‘dumb’ and he’s right.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late on Monday also defended the decision to go to war, contending in an interview on Fox News Channel’s Hannity that Iran was rebuilding “new sites, new places” that would make “their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program immune within months”, without providing evidence.

Satellite photos analysed by The Associated Press showed limited activity at two nuclear sites in Iran before the war, with analysts saying it was likely Tehran was trying to assess damage from American strikes in June and possibly salvage what remained there.

Iran begins burying its dead

The Iranian Red Crescent Society says at least 787 people in Iran have been killed since the US and Israeli airstrikes started.

Massive crowds gathered in the southern Iranian city of Minab overnight to mourn the deaths of at least 168 children and 14 teachers killed in the US-Israeli attack on a girls’ elementary school on Saturday, according to state media.

Some mourners held pictures of the children killed – some as young as 7 – a stark reminder of the human tragedy at the heart of this escalating conflict. While few details have emerged about those killed in the strikes in Iran, at least 780 people have been killed across 153 counties, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

Video and imagery from the funeral showed crowds of mourners reciting prayers around small coffins draped in the Iranian flag.

Earlier, Iran’s foreign ministry accused the US and Israel of war crimes for the deaths at the school.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo to X of freshly dug graves.

“These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds,” Araghchi said.

Rubio told reporters on Monday that the US “would not deliberately target a school”.

“The Department of War would be investigating that if that was our strike, and I would refer your question to them,” he said.

Across Iran’s capital, explosions rang out throughout the night into Tuesday, with aircraft heard overhead.

It was not immediately clear what had been hit. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site had sustained “some recent damage”, though there was “no radiological consequence expected”.

Natanz earlier came under attack by the US in the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June.

In Lebanon, Israel launched more strikes on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group.

Explosions could be heard and smoke seen in a southern suburb of Beirut. Israel also said its soldiers were “operating in southern Lebanon”.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the Lebanese army was evacuating some of its positions along the border.

Iran continues to lash Gulf countries

Iran struck the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital with a drone early on Tuesday as it kept hitting targets around the region, while the United States and Israel pounded Iran with airstrikes in what Trump suggested was just the start of a relentless campaign that could last more than a month.

The attack from two drones on the US Embassy in Riyadh caused a “limited fire” and minor damage, according to Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry, and the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound.

It followed an attack on the US Embassy in Kuwait, which announced on Tuesday it had been closed until further notice.

The US State Department also ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and family in Kuwait, as well as Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates as a precaution.

Protecting protesters and crippling Iran’s nuclear program

In January, Trump floated taking military action in Iran in response to Tehran’s violent crackdown on protestors who had taken to the streets.

Trump warned that if Iran killed peaceful protesters, “the United States of America will come to their rescue,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Later in January as Iranian protests grew, including plans for a high-profile execution of a 26-year-old protester, Trump urged the Iranian people to “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS” in a Truth Social post, adding that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

Trump was briefed on potential options for striking Iran. But the president held back.

As the US began talks with Iran that included Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the US also began amassing forces in the region. Trump turned his focus on the threat of military action against Iran to its nuclear program. (On Monday evening, the White House put out a press release titled, “74 Times President Trump Has Made Clear That Iran Cannot Have a Nuclear Weapon”.)

The military build-up continued into February in the days leading up to Saturday’s strikes. Trump suggested he wanted regime change, saying it “would be the best thing that could happen” in Iran.

The war’s unclear length and endgame

Trump made headway toward that goal with Saturday’s military action, as Khamenei and dozens of other senior Iranian officials were killed in joint US-Israeli missile strikes.

But speaking in a series of brief phone interviews with reporters in the days since the strike, Trump has been muddied in suggesting what comes next, both in the length of the US military campaign in Iran and who might take over the country.

Trump has similarly offered different explanations for what the US plan is in Iran now that Khamenei is dead.

The president said that he had several good choices to lead Iran next, though he has yet to name them. And in an interview with ABC, he said that those options may have also been killed on Saturday.

“It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”

Trump has suggested that US military action in Venezuela — where US forces captured Maduro and then his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, became the country’s acting president amid pledges to work with the US — would work for Iran, too.

During Monday’s Pentagon briefing, Hegseth pushed back on the notion that the president had to lay out the length of the military campaign publicly.

“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back,” Hegseth said.

“We know exactly where his headspace is, and he will communicate as he should, exactly what he would like, and we will follow those orders.”

– Reported with Associated Press and CNN.

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