U.S. is at war with Iran's nuclear program

US Vice President JD Vance speaks during a discussion at the Munich Leaders meeting hosted by the Munich Security Conference at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, May 7, 2025.

Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

Vice President JD Vance insisted Sunday that the United States is not at war with Iran, but with “Iran’s nuclear program,” hours after the United States’ late-night strikes on three of the country’s nuclear sites.

Vance’s remarks come soon after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran’s “nuclear ambitions have been obliterated,” following the Trump administration’s strikes on facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Iran reserves all options to defend itself following the U.S. attacks, raising concerns of a dramatic escalation across the region.

When asked by NBC News’ Kristen Welker how the U.S. would respond to a retaliation by Iran, Vance said: “We do not want war with Iran, we actually want peace, but we want peace in the context of them not having a nuclear weapons program, and that’s exactly what the president accomplished last night.”

White House officials, including Trump, touted the success of the late-night mission in destroying the nuclear facilities, but the extent of the damage was still not known on Sunday.

Pence did not say whether the three nuclear sites hit by the U.S. have any remaining capacity.

“I’m not going to get into sensitive intelligence about what we’ve seen on the ground there in Iran, but we’ve seen a lot, and I feel very confident that we’ve substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon, and that was the goal of this attack,” Vance said.