U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the White House, after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump’s war in Iran may put US and Israeli lives in jeopardy as Iran vows to treat locations in those two nations as “primary targets” in its military response.
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran announced on Saturday that he is suspending Iran’s attacks on other Middle Eastern countries except those that have been belligerent toward Iran. In this context, he also mentioned that Iran will target US and Israeli locations.
"I should apologize to the neighboring countries that were attacked by Iran, on my own behalf," Pezeshkian explained in a prerecorded address on state television according to The Associated Press. "From now on, they should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them, unless we are attacked from those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy."
He added that Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender is a "dream that they should take to their grave,” with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard adding that “the armed forces once again affirm that they respect the interests and national sovereignty of neighboring countries and have not taken any hostile action against them” and that "all military bases and interests" in both the United States and Israel "on land, at sea, and in the air across the region will be considered primary targets and will come under powerful and heavy strikes by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Prior to his apology, Iran launched attacks against other Middle Eastern nations including the United Arab Emirates (16 ballistic missiles and 121 drones) and Jordan (allegedly 119 missiles and drones). While Iran promised to not attack these nations again, it offered no such reassurance for Americans — and that is not the only way in which the Iran war could harm the American public.
"The bad news comes in two parts," economist Paul Krugman wrote. "First, any hopes that this war might be extremely brief are fading. The Trump Administration may have imagined that decapitating the Iranian government would bring swift regime change, but the Islamic state isn't a government of mere thugs — yes, they're evil thugs, but they're also serious religious fanatics facing what, for them, is an existential threat. And their grip on power isn't that easy to break…. Second, war in the middle of the world's most important oil-producing region — which is also a key source of liquefied natural gas — inevitably has major consequences for energy prices."
Meanwhile Trump voters, many of whom oppose expansive wars, feel betrayed by Trump’s actions.
“When you have a Biden to Trump voter, they tend to have voted for Donald Trump for one specific reason, which is that he promised he was going to lower prices and make America more affordable. That's what they heard. That's what they believed,” conservative commentator Sarah Longwell from The Bulwark told MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace. “… [T]he way these voters process anything that Trump is doing is they just ask ‘is what he is doing making my life more affordable? Because that's what I hired him to do.’ And so, whether it's building the ballroom, whether it is the aggressive way that they are shooting Americans in the streets and going after immigrants, or whether it is this war with Iran, they see it as not what they were promised.”