From his lectern in the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was speaking on Sunday to two very different audiences.

His message to Iran’s leaders just hours after the U.S. strikes was clear: He wanted them to understand that the U.S. military’s power is vast and overwhelming. Mr. Hegseth described its capabilities as “nearly unlimited.”

At the same time, he was trying to convey a somewhat contradictory message to the American people and President Trump’s base, who remain deeply skeptical of an open-ended war in the Middle East.

“The scope of this was intentionally limited,” Mr. Hegseth insisted Sunday, in his first news conference in five months as defense secretary.

The U.S. attack on Iran’s three main nuclear sites employed 125 aircraft and 75 precision-guided bombs. The main focus was seven B-2 stealth bombers that carried 30,000–pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators designed to destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear site at Fordo.

In his remarks, Mr. Hegseth drew special attention to the American military’s vast reach. The B-2 bombers had flown 18 hours from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

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