Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Friday morning that the U.S. military should win the Nobel Peace Prize “every single year” for protecting the globe from sponsors of terror like the Islamic Republic.
“We are the guarantor of the safety and security not just of our country, but of a lot of people in this world,” Hegseth told reporters during a press briefing at the Pentagon as he detailed U.S. efforts to expand its naval blockade in the Persian Gulf.
The U.S. military will now seek out Iran’s fleet of illicit tankers as they traverse international waterways from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. A second U.S. aircraft carrier is already on its way to the region and “will join the blockade in just a few days,” Hegseth said.
“Our blockade is only growing and going global,” the secretary said, noting that the seizure of two Iranian “dark fleet” vessels in the Indian Ocean earlier this week was just the start of U.S. efforts to kneecap Tehran’s multibillion-dollar oil trade.
The Washington Free Beacon reported on Thursday that Iran’s tanker fleet moved 60 million barrels of crude oil worth an estimated $5 billion between the beginning of Operation Epic Fury and the start of the U.S. blockade, delivering crude primarily to China. Those ships, at least 34 of which are now near Southeast Asia, will be subject to U.S. action as they attempt to make their way back to Iran.
Hegseth noted that the two vessels seized this week—known as the Tifani and Majestic X—”had left Iranian ports before the blockade went into effect. They thought they’d made it out just in time. They did not.”
Tehran responded to the blockade this week by abducting two commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and firing on a third. Hegseth said that the Islamic Republic’s actions are those of a desperate and significantly weakened regime.
“They’re not American ships. They’re not Israeli ships. They’re just random ships,” Hegseth said. “They drove their little speedboats up to and shot at those ships with AK-47s. Anyone with a speedboat, a gun, and the wrong intentions can do that.”
President Donald Trump has already authorized the Navy “to shoot and kill” the crews of any Iranian attack boats that attempt to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz or “disrupt passage” for authorized commercial vessels. “If Iran is putting mines in the water or otherwise threatening American commercial shipping or American forces, we will shoot to destroy, no hesitation, just like the drug boats in the Caribbean,” Hegseth said.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he added, “has been reduced to a gang of pirates with a flag. They cloak their aggression in slogans, but the world now sees them for what they are: criminals on the high seas. They don’t control anything. They’re acting like pirates, acting like terrorists.”
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