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Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital in an interview the United States now has a clear and defined military objective in Iran: dismantle the regime’s ability to strike Americans.
He said the U.S. mission is “to literally eliminate every single piece of military hardware that exists in Iran that can reach out and touch an American somewhere throughout the Middle East.”
“That is what we are conducting right now so that we do not get hit with something, a surface-to-surface missile or a surface-to-air missile or anything else, certainly with a nuclear tip, but with any other tip as well.”
A screengrab from a video released by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which accompanied a press release describing the operation dubbed “Epic Fury”, an attack by the United States and Israel on Iran, shows smoke and dust rising following an explosion at an unknown location, in this image obtained from social media released on Feb. 28, 2026. Verification lines: The location and the date when the video was filmed could not be verified. The U.S. confirmed the attack on Iran on Saturday. (US CENTCOM via X via REUTERS )
Mast paid tribute to the three Americans killed in the operation. “These service members understood the hazards of their profession. They went out there, conducted their duty to defend the United States of America, and I could not be more proud than to thank them for their service, and I’m proud to be their brother in arms.”
He stressed that the scope and duration of the operation will be decided by the administration. “The ending of this militarily for the United States is on our terms,” he said.
Mast pushed back forcefully against claims that Israel dragged the United States into war with Iran, saying the Trump administration first pursued diplomacy and set a deadline before shifting to military action.
“Israel has not dragged the United States of America anywhere,” he said in the interview. “The United States, number one, started out with diplomatic negotiations with Iran to say, end your nuclear program, end your ballistic missile program and your support of these proxies that are continually attacking the United States of America.”
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The world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford steams alongside USNS Laramie. (U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / U.S. 6th Fleet / Handout via Reuters)
“Everything is a part of that debate and that conversation. When should something be done? How should something be done? Obviously, the United States of America and President Trump, Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Rubio, our Director of Intelligence, our director of our CIA, John Radcliffe, working to get all of the assets in place so that the negotiating tool of ending the literal threat of Iran. Was a part of that.”
“It didn’t just happen on accident that we snapped our fingers and we had the Ford carrier group there, the Lincoln carrier group. That is something that took time,” he added. “Now, the diplomatic approach was the preferred approach. That’s why it began with that instead of beginning with a military strike. And what I can tell you about those negotiations, speaking directly to those individuals that I just mentioned, is that Iran came into this extremely egotistical. Unwilling to really discuss anything relating to ending their nuclear program,” he said.
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Smoke rises over the city after the Israeli army launched a second wave of airstrikes on Iran in Tehran on Feb. 28, 2026. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Even after the United States offered to fund nuclear materials for a civilian energy program if Iran agreed not to pursue weaponization, they didn’t want that. They didn’t wanna talk about ending their ballistic missile program.”
Looking ahead, Mast suggested the conflict could reshape Iran’s political future. He described the regime’s formal succession process, which “begins with this three-person body, ultimately moves to this 88-person assembly that would go out there and choose the next leader,” and noted potential contenders including “the son of the Ayatollah, grandson of the ayatollah” and “a very hard-line cleric named Arafi, who’s very closely aligned with the IRGC.”
But he also raised the possibility of broader upheaval.
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Chairman U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 21, 2025. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
“That assumes that there is not uprising, where the people, the millions and millions of people across Iran who have been just brutally tortured and suppressed don’t decide that there is another path,” Mast said.
“We want to see a change, a turning of the page for what Iran has been undertaking.”
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