The Pentagon’s top leaders are confident that the Iranian regime’s military is being pulverized by American forces from the land, sea, and air, with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declaring that “we’re winning decisively” against the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran.

President Donald Trump announced at the end of February that U.S. and Israeli forces had launched a joint attack against the regime in Tehran, quickly killing Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and soon greatly degrading the Iranian military, targeting ballistic missile sites, bombing drone production facilities, sinking naval ships, hitting the Iranian defense industrial base, and hammering strongholds run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“Epic Fury is different. It's laser-focused. It's decisive,” Hegseth said during a Thursday press conference. “Our objectives, given directly from our America-first president, remain exactly what they were on day one. These are not the media's objectives, not Iran's objectives, not new objectives. Our objectives, unchanged, on target and on plan, destroy missiles, launchers and Iran's defense industrial base so they cannot rebuild or destroy their navy and Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, our objectives from day one.”

The war secretary added: “We're winning decisively and on our terms.”

Pentagon: "Remain on plan to eliminate Iran's ability to project meaningful power outside its borders"

Trump similarly declared on Truth Social on Friday that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran.”

Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) also provided an update on Saturday.

“On day 22 of combat operations, U.S. forces continue to take bold action and remain on plan to eliminate Iran's ability to project meaningful power outside its borders,” Cooper said.

K.T. McFarland, a former deputy national security adviser from Trump’s first term, told Just the News on Friday that the Iranian regime was “now isolated in the region and militarily defanged.”

“Iran is militarily finished. No air force. No navy. The senior leadership of the Revolutionary Guard gone,” McFarland said.

She added: “I look at the bigger picture, the great news is that President Trump has bought us at least a decade of freedom from the nuclear threat from Iran. So even if he declared victory today, he could walk away and say … ‘We don't have a nuclear threat. Their army, their navy, their air force, their missile production capabilities, we have set them back at least a decade to rebuild that.’ So we bought peace for a decade.”

During the first three weeks of fighting, thirteen U.S. service members have been killed, including from Iranian retaliatory attacks in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the early days of the current war and an aircraft refueling incident in the skies over Iraq.

CENTCOM: 8,000 military targets hit and 130 Iranian vessels eliminated

“Iran has lost significant combat capability over the last three weeks. We are taking out thousands of Iranian missiles, advanced attack drones, and all of Iran's navy — which they use to harass international shipping,” Cooper said in his Saturday morning update. “Their navy is not sailing, their tactical fighters are not flying, and they have lost the ability to launch missiles and drones at high rates seen at the beginning of the conflict. Our progress is obvious.”

The CENTCOM commander said that “U.S. forces maintain air superiority over Iran's skies, having now flown over 8,000 combat flights.”

“Tankers are extending our reach so that we can keep constant pressure on the enemy. Fighters and bombers delivering precision strikes against our primary objectives. And our pilots across the board are dynamically hunting threats as well, finding and eliminating targets in real time,” Cooper said.

The leader of CENTCOM added that “so far we've struck over 8,000 military targets, including 130 Iranian vessels, constituting the largest elimination of a navy over a three-week period since World War II.”

“My operational assessment continues to be: Iran's combat capability is on a steady decline as our offensive strikes ramp up,” Cooper argued.

CENTCOM’s X account on Wednesday had said that “CENTCOM forces are striking targets to dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that pose an imminent threat.

CENTCOM also said that the types of targets being hit by the U.S. military included IRGC headquarters buildings and IRGC intelligence sites, military command and control centers, and Iranian integrated air defense systems. Targets struck by the U.S. also include ballistic missile sites, anti-ship missile sites, Iranian navy ships and submarines, ballistic missile and drone manufacturing, weapons production and storage bunkers, and military support infrastructure.

Hegseth: Iranian military leadership positions are now “temp jobs”

Hegseth expressed great confidence on Thursday that the U.S. military was successfully and rapidly dismantling the Iranian regime’s forces, as he referred to leadership slots within the IRGC and the Basij paramilitary as “temp jobs.”

“We're hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran's air defenses — flattened. Iran's defense industrial base, the factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programs — being overwhelmingly destroyed. We've hit hundreds of their defense industrial bases directly,” Hegseth said. The war secretary said Iran’s ability to produce new ballistic missiles “has probably taken the hardest hit of all.”

Hegseth added: “The last job anyone in the world wants right now: senior leader for the IRGC or Basij — temp jobs, all of them. And to borrow a page from Admiral Ernest King in World War II, we've decided to share the ocean with Iran. We've given them the bottom half.”

The Secretary of the Department of War argued that “their surface fleet is no longer a factor, their submarines — they once had eleven — are gone, and their military ports are crippled.”

A-10 Warthogs and Apaches join the fight against Iran

General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also expressed confidence on Thursday that the Iranian military was being degraded, revealing that the U.S. was now using lower-flying and slower-flying aerial assets to bring the fight to the Iranians.

“U.S. Central Command remains on plan to achieve our military objectives and remain unrelenting in our pursuit of Iranian missile capabilities, UAV capabilities and their navy, and as the secretary said, their industrial base. Each day we continue to attack deeper into Iranian territory,” Caine said.

The chairman added: “We're flying further to the east now and penetrating deeper into Iranian airspace to hunt and kill one way attack garrisons, destroying Iran's ability to project power outside its borders.”

“The A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz,” Caine said. “In addition, AH-64 Apaches have joined the fight on the southern flank, and they continue to work on the southern side. And that includes some of our allies who are using Apaches to handle one-way attacking attack drones.”

Cooper also revealed on Saturday that U.S. land-based assets were also playing a key role. “Just two days ago, the U.S. Army launched the longest field artillery strike in Army combat history, using precision strike missiles,” the CENTCOM commander said. “The strike took out Iranian military infrastructure, demonstrating the U.S. military's unmatched reach and lethality.”

The plan to eliminate Iran’s threat to the Strait of Hormuz

Trump and military commanders also stressed the importance of eliminating the Iranian threat to the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and then with the Arabian Sea. The president on Friday laid out the U.S. military objectives which he said were being achieved:

“(1) Completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability, Launchers, and everything else pertaining to them. (2) Destroying Iran’s Defense Industrial Base. (3) Eliminating their Navy and Air Force, including Anti Aircraft Weaponry. (4) Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability, and always being in a position where the U.S.A. can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation, should it take place. (5) Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others,” he said.

Trump added: “The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Cooper on Saturday stressed that “we also remain zeroed-in on dismantling Iran's decades-old threat to the free flow of commerce throughout the Strait of Hormuz.”

“For example, earlier this week we dropped multiple 5,000-pound bombs in an underground facility located along Iran's coastline,” the CENTCOM commander said. “The Iranian regime used the hardened underground facility to discreetly store anti-ship cruise missiles, mobile missile launchers, and other equipment that presented a dangerous risk to international shipping.”

Cooper continued: “We not only took out the facility, but also destroyed intelligence support sites and missile radar relays that were used to monitor ship movements. Iran's ability to threaten freedom of navigation in and around the Strait of Hormuz is degraded as a result. And we will not stop pursuing these targets.”

Trump apparently proven right about Iranian ballistic missile capability

The tempo and scale of Iranian missile and drone launches has slowed dramatically since the start of the current conflict following relentless U.S. strikes, but the Iranian ability to strike has not been entirely eliminated.

The Institute for the Study of War assessed Friday that Iran had launched eleven missile barrages at Israel during a 24-hour period from Thursday into Friday, and that Iran continued to fire missiles and launch drone attacks against the Gulf states, with the Gulf states successfully intercepting most of these attempts.

“Ballistic missile attacks against our forces, down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one-way attack UAVs [unammed aerial vehicles], think kamikaze drones, down 90 percent,” Hegseth had said Thursday. “Now the Iranians will still shoot, we know that, but they would shoot a lot more if they could, but they can't.”

Trump in his State of the Union last month had argued that the Iranians “have already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that “Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-U.K. military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, according to multiple U.S. officials. Neither of the missiles hit the base, but the move marked Iran’s first operational use of IRBMs [intermediate-range ballistic missiles] and a significant attempt to reach far beyond the Middle East and threaten U.S. interests.”

The outlet said one missile failed during its flight and that a U.S. warship fired an interceptor at the other missile.

“Iran’s targeting of Diego Garcia, about 2,500 miles from Iran, implies its missiles have a greater range than Tehran has previously acknowledged,” the outlet said.

Iran says it's no threat to anybody

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had claimed earlier in March that it was “misinformation” to say Iran was working to field longer-range missiles. “You know, we have the capability to produce missiles, but we have intentionally limited ourselves to below 2,000 kilometers [roughly 1,242 miles] of range because we don’t want to be felt as a threat by anybody else in the world,” Araghchi said.

Iran Watch, part of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, had said in a January report that the Iranian regime was likely in possession of ballistic missiles that could reach beyond the alleged 2,000-kilometer limit, including medium-range ballistic missiles that could reach up to 3,000 kilometers (or more than 1,800 miles) as well as space launch vehicles which could reach as many as 6,000 kilometers: more than 3,700 miles.

“They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore,” Trump said of the Iranian regime in his video posted on Truth Social in late February as he announced strikes against Iran. “Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing the long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland. Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had, and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message.”