{"id":202233,"date":"2026-03-03T12:26:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T12:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-news-at-a-glance-president-offers-goals-but-no-end-date-for-military-offensive-against-iran-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T12:26:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T12:26:25","slug":"trump-news-at-a-glance-president-offers-goals-but-no-end-date-for-military-offensive-against-iran-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-news-at-a-glance-president-offers-goals-but-no-end-date-for-military-offensive-against-iran-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump news at a glance: president offers goals but no end date for military offensive against Iran – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump said military campaign could \u2018go far longer\u2019 then initial four-to-five week projection as violence and chaos ripple across Middle East \u2013 key US politics stories from Monday 2 March at a glance
Donald Trump has laid out four goals<\/a> in Iran and said the US campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but could \u201cgo far longer than that\u201d.
On Monday, the US president offered his most extensive comments yet about the war, going beyond two video messages<\/a> and a series of brief phone interviews with reporters that offered sometimes conflicting objectives.
But Trump undercut the gravity of his remarks by abruptly pivoting to tout his plans for a new White House ballroom<\/a>, boasting that it would be the \u201cmost beautiful ballroom in the world\u201d, coming in \u201cunder budget\u201d and \u201cahead of schedule\u201d for \u201c$400m or less\u201d.
Trump said he had ordered the attack on Iran<\/a> to thwart Tehran\u2019s nuclear development and a ballistic missile programme that was \u201cgrowing rapidly and dramatically\u201d and \u201cposed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas\u201d.
That was a different justification than the one Trump\u2019s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, gave later on Monday. After a closed-door briefing with US congressional members, Rubio told reporters that Israel\u2019s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration<\/a> to make pre-emptive strikes.
Rubio\u2019s explanation worried some US lawmakers.
\u201cThere was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians,\u201d said Mark Warner, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee. \u201cThere was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the United States, then we are in uncharted territory.\u201d
The president asserted without evidence that Iran \u201cwould soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America\u201d \u2013 a claim disputed by national security experts. Trump added that other countries backed US efforts to stop Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon but \u201cthey just didn\u2019t have the courage to say so.\u201d
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
The war in the Middle East triggered by the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran expanded dramatically on Monday, with casualties and destruction reported across at least nine countries in under 10 hours.
Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes across Iran, where the Iranian Red Crescent Society said more than 500 people have been killed since the conflict began. Israel also launched an intense wave of attacks into Lebanon after Hezbollah struck at northern Israel<\/a> in retaliation for the Israeli strike on Saturday that killed Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Three US fighter jets were mistakenly shot down over Kuwait<\/a> early on Monday in an apparent \u201cfriendly fire\u201d incident, military officials said. All six crew members ejected safely.
According to a statement<\/a> from US Central Command (Centcom), Kuwait\u2019s air defences fired on the F-15 war planes during a combat mission on the third day of conflict following Saturday\u2019s launch of US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
The UK \u201ctook far too long\u201d to allow US forces to use its airbases to attack Iran, Donald Trump<\/a> has said.
The US president added that he was \u201cvery disappointed\u201d in Keir Starmer over the British government\u2019s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands<\/a> to Mauritius as a means to preserve the status of the UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia, part of the Indian Ocean archipegalo.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Donald Trump<\/a> was seen with a rash on the side of his neck during the Medal of Honor ceremony on Monday, fueling more speculation about the state of the president\u2019s health.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Melania Trump became the first spouse of a sitting world leader to preside over the UN security council on Monday, calling on member states to protect children\u2019s access to education days after Iranian state media reported that an airstrike killed at least 165 people<\/a> at a girls\u2019 school in southern Iran.
Officials in Texas<\/a> are continuing to investigate a weekend mass shooting<\/a> at an Austin bar by a man wearing a \u201cProperty of Allah\u201d hoodie as an act of potential terrorism, as fears rise over the possibility of further attacks following US airstrikes on Iran<\/a><\/strong>.
Ron DeSantis<\/a>, Florida<\/a>\u2019s Republican governor, spent $1.2m of taxpayers\u2019 money per day to open and operate the notorious immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz<\/a><\/strong>, court records obtained by the independent investigative news website the Florida Tributary<\/a> reveal.
Videos of Bill Clinton<\/a>, the former US president, and Hillary Clinton<\/a>, the former US secretary of state, answering questions about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> were released on Monday by a House committee investigating the late financier<\/a><\/strong>.
Donald Trump said on Monday he will attend the White House correspondents\u2019 association dinner for the first time as president<\/a><\/strong>.
Ryan Zinke, a Montana Republican who served as interior secretary during Donald Trump\u2019s first administration, said he would not seek re-election to a fifth term in the US House<\/a><\/strong>, citing health concerns.
Catching up? Here\u2019s what happened Sunday 1 March<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump said military campaign could \u2018go far longer\u2019 then initial four-to-five week projection as violence and chaos ripple across Middle East \u2013 key US politics stories from Monday 2 March at a glanceDonald Trump has laid out four goals in Iran and said the US campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":202234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-202233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}