US President Donald Trump marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks at the Pentagon on Friday, vowing that the United States would never forget the victims and drawing a direct connection between the war on terror launched after the attacks and the ongoing conflict with Iran.
“Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago. We will never, ever forget. That's why we fight today," Trump said during the ceremony, where he was joined by First Lady Melania Trump.
“We don't have a choice. There can only be victory. We fight hard. We fight to win," he added.
A hijacked plane struck the Pentagon on September 11, killing 184 people. Their names were read during Friday's ceremony, accompanied by the tolling of a single bell.
Trump invoked the military campaign against the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization initiated under Republican President George W. Bush as he described the current confrontation with Iran, now in its seventh month.
“Today we salute every member of the United States military who served in the 'War on Terror.' It is a war on sick, horrible terror," Trump said.
“And we salute the service members working right now to ensure the world's number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never ever have a nuclear weapon."
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth likewise focused his remarks on Iran, saying, “Over the past six months, we have laid waste to the world's most prolific state sponsor of terrorism. Our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century."
Trump's comments came amid conflicting assessments over how long the war with Iran could continue. On Wednesday, he predicted that the conflict would conclude immediately after the US midterm elections in November, saying Iran “can't hold out any longer."
He also accused Tehran of attempting to prolong the fighting in order to influence the elections. “They're desperate to try and affect the election so that we could get a nice, weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon."
Later that day, The Wall Street Journal reported that senior White House officials had privately warned Trump that the conflict could potentially continue for years, possibly through the end of his current term in January 2029.
According to the report, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior advisers have discussed the possibility that Iran will continue resisting US military pressure and the blockade despite Trump's public expectation of a rapid end to the war.
Trump said Thursday that he does not regret launching the war against Iran and would make the same decision again, arguing that the United States had destroyed Iran's nuclear capability.
In an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News, Trump said, "I don't believe in the word regret. You can always question yourself a little bit. A few people have asked me that. If I had it to do again, I'd do exactly as I did. I took out their nuclear capability."
Trump said that an Iranian nuclear weapon would have posed a severe threat to Israel, the Middle East and the United States.
"Supposing we were cruising and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon. They would use it. They're crazy. I deal with them. They're crazy. And they would use it," he said. "They would have wiped out Israel. They would have wiped out the Middle East. And they would have started hitting a couple of our cities."
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Rosh Hashanah in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)