Washington. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday will be the most intense day yet of US strikes inside Iran as the Islamic Republic, its firepower diminished, vowed to fight on. 

Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning from the Pentagon, Hegserg said: “Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.”

His statement came shortly after he said that “the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest amount of missiles they have fired yet.”

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same news conference that the US military is moving into the 11th day of its operation against Iran.

Iranian security official Ali Larijani wrote a message on X after US President Donald Trump threatened to attack Iran “TWENTY TIMES HARDER” if Tehran stopped oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Larijani wrote: “The sacrificial nation of Iran doesn’t fear your empty threats. Even those bigger than you couldn’t eliminate Iran. Be careful not to get eliminated yourself.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said “we are breaking their bones” and said the war's aim is a popular overthrow of Iran's government.

War with Iran Delivers Another Shock to the Global Economy
The war with Iran is inflicting collateral damage — driving up energy and fertilizer prices; threatening food shortages in poor countries; destabilizing fragile states such as Pakistan; and complicating options for the inflation fighters at central banks like the Federal Reserve.

Causing much of the pain: the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes — was effectively shut down after the US and Israel launched missile strikes Feb. 28 that killed Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“For a long time, the nightmare scenario that deterred the US from even thinking about an attack on Iran and which got them to urge restraint on Israel was that the Iranians would close the Strait of Hormuz,” said Maurice Obstfeld, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. “Now we’re in the nightmare scenario.”

More Americans Oppose than Support the US Military Action
Americans are divided along party lines on US military action against Iran, according to polls conducted since the war began, with most polls showing opposition is higher than support.

About half of registered voters — 53% — oppose US military action against Iran, according to a Quinnipiac Poll conducted over the weekend. Only 4 in 10 support it, and about 1 in 10 are uncertain.

That’s similar to the results of text message snap polls from The Washington Post and CNN, both conducted shortly after the joint US-Israel attacks began, which also indicated that more Americans rejected the military action than embraced it.

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