President Trump demands 'regime change' in Iran, but White House insiders disagree.

"Using the term 'Regime Change' is politically incorrect, but if the current Iranian regime cannot MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why not a regime change??? MIGA!!!" Trump wrote on his social media platform.

Trump's post came after officials in his administration, including US Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, stressed that they were not seeking to overthrow the Iranian government.

"This mission has not been about regime change," Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon, calling it "a precise operation" targeting Iran's nuclear program.

In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press with Kristen Welker," Mr. Vance stated, "Our position is very clear: we do not want to change the regime."

"We don't want to prolong or expand this conflict any further. We want to end their nuclear program, and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a lasting solution here," Vance said, adding that the U.S. "has no intention of deploying troops on the ground."

Operation Midnight Hammer was known to only a select few in Washington and at the headquarters of the U.S. military's Middle East Operations Command in Tampa, Florida.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, told reporters that, in a diversionary operation, seven B-2 bombers flew for 18 hours from the United States into Iran to drop 14 bunker-busting bombs.

In total, the U.S. launched 75 precision-guided munitions, including more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles, and used more than 125 military aircraft in the operation targeting three nuclear facilities, Caine said.

This campaign pushes the Middle East to the brink of a new major conflict in a region already engulfed in fighting for over 20 months in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.

Damage to facilities

With damage visible from space after 30,000-pound U.S. bunker-busting bombs struck the mountain above Iran's Fordow nuclear facility, experts and officials are closely watching to see how much the airstrikes can push back what they see as Iran's "nuclear ambitions."

Mr. Caine said initial damage assessments following the battle indicated all three sites were extremely damaged and destroyed, but he declined to speculate on whether any of Iran's nuclear capabilities remained intact.

The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, was more cautious, saying that while it was clear the US airstrikes had hit Iran's enrichment facility at Fordow, the extent of the underground damage was yet to be assessed.

A senior Iranian source told Reuters on June 22 that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow, where the majority of Iran's uranium, refined to 60%, is produced, had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack.

Vance told NBC that the U.S. is not at war with Iran, but with its nuclear program, and he thinks the airstrikes "have actually set their program back a very long time."

Trump said the damage was "enormous" in another social media post on June 22, a day after saying he had "wiped out" Iran's main nuclear facilities, but offered no details.

Tehran declared it would defend itself and retaliated with a barrage of missiles at Israel, injuring dozens and destroying buildings in Tel Aviv's commercial center.

However, perhaps in an effort to avoid a full-scale war with this superpower, they have yet to carry out their main retaliatory threats: targeting US bases or choking off a quarter of the world's oil shipments that pass through their waters.

Mr. Caine stated that the U.S. military has increased its force protection in the region, including in Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. already has a significant force in the Middle East, with nearly 40,000 troops in the region, including air defense systems, fighter jets, and warships capable of detecting and shooting down enemy missiles.

Reuters reported last week that the Pentagon had begun moving some aircraft and warships away from bases in the Middle East that could be vulnerable to any Iranian attack.

Not an open campaign

With the unprecedented decision to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and directly participate in Israel's airstrikes against its regional adversary, Trump did something he had long vowed to avoid – military intervention in a major war abroad.

There were sporadic anti-war protests on the afternoon of June 22nd in several US cities, including New York and Washington.

It is unclear why Trump chose to act on June 21st.

At the press conference, Hegseth said there was a point when Trump "realized that certain action was needed to mitigate the threat to us and our military."

After Trump rejected her initial assessment, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on June 20 that the U.S. had intelligence that if Iran decided, it could build a nuclear weapon within weeks or months—an assessment challenged by some lawmakers and independent experts. U.S. officials said they did not believe Iran had decided to build a bomb.

When asked on CBS's "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" whether the U.S. had seen intelligence indicating that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ordered nuclear weaponization, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: "That's irrelevant."

Hegseth, who said the Pentagon notified lawmakers about the operation after U.S. planes left Iran, said the airstrikes against Iran were not an open campaign.

Rubio also said there were no further attack plans unless Iran retaliated, telling CBS: "We have other targets we could attack, but we've achieved our objectives. There is currently no military action planned against Iran – unless they cause trouble."