Hegseth's argument here is essentially saying "Iran started it by fighting us with proxy forces while we were involved in other conflicts."

He's being a complete hypocrite here, by demonizing what Iran did, while tacitly condoning what we and Israel have been doing for decades, all over the planet. We've toppled governments, assassinated political leaders, regime changed, committed false flags to get us involved in wars, killed millions of innocent people, and funded, armed, trained, created, and led numerous guerrilla and terrorist groups to achieve the same.

If Hegseth, or any of the other neocon warmongers, were being logically consistent, they'd have to label the United States and Israel as the worst offenders and immediately start bombing Washington D.C. and Tel Aviv.

I loathe hypocrites. May God pour out His wrath on all of them.