There are currently 11 requests from Iran’s neighbors, European states, and America for help in protection against aggression.

We have already responded to some of these requests with specific decisions and support.

We're also setting up, as we speak, a purely defensive mission. This is a support mission, the purpose of which is to work with other European and indeed non-European states.

The purpose is to provide escorts for container ships to gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is, of course, a passage for international trade but also a passage for oil and gas, which should be able to come out of the region.

This will all take place in good order, and we've started discussing this. This is a peaceful defensive mission; it's a support mission, but indeed it is essential for our economies and indeed for the global economy at large.

Hezbollah should stop all attack from Lebanese soil because it is threatening all Lebanese nationals.

Israel should also stop its military operations and strikes against Lebanon.

Unconditional surrender means we're fighting to win. It means we set the terms.

We'll know when they're not capable of fighting.

Whether they know it or not, they will be combat ineffective. They will surrender.

There's a reason we changed our name from the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

Not because we seek war. Not because we want more war.

Frankly, we want peace.

If war is necessary, we're going to fight to win.

President Trump is right when he says we obliterated their nuclear program. He’s right. We did. We dropped those bombs exactly where they needed to be, set them back.

But that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped their pursuit.

We want the Iranians guessing and second-guessing and triple-guessing what we might be willing to do, because under Trump, we just might.

It’s not a regime change war in the conventional George W. Bush context of hundreds of thousands of troops.

I mean, in Afghanistan what I watched as a young captain was Americans thinking we were going to remake a society that was basically biblical times with AK-47s and cell phones.

The hubris of thinking we were going to take Afghanistan and turn it into a Jeffersonian democracy by building Western-style forces and Western-style institutions — it was never going to work.

This is not a remaking of Iranian society from an American perspective. We tried that. The American people have rejected that.

Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties.

Especially our generation knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets.

But that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say, "This is a fight we will finish."

I’m a man of faith who encourages our troops to lean into their faith. Rely on God. There’s no atheists in foxholes. Your mortality is right in front of you.

I remember prayer for me on combat missions, how important that was.

My Christian faith — faith in general — is important to President Trump. It’s important in our fighting ranks to give them perspective on human nature, on their own humanity, on our own mortality.

We lost a lot of that with sort of self-help, self-esteem nonsense, which is not what troops need.

I think part of the reason recruiting is so high in our military right now is they understand they’ve got leadership that has their back, that has walked in their boots, that’s not going to use them callously or recklessly or for some nebulous mission, but is going to pour into them and give them every authority they need to be successful.

The goals of this mission are clear, and it is important to continue to remind the American people of why it is that the greatest military in the history of the world is engaged in this operation.

It is to destroy the ability of this regime to launch missiles by destroying their missiles and their launchers, destroy the factories that make these missiles, and destroy their Navy.

Your military is getting the job done.

The world is going to be a safer and a better place when this mission is accomplished.