Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ties America’s response after 9/11 to the war in Iran, tell me about this news in (https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/11/us/video/hegseth-911-memorial-speech-iran)

During the 25th anniversary commemoration of the September 11 attacks held at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used his memorial address to link America’s post-9/11 security posture directly to the ongoing military conflict with Iran.In his remarks, Hegseth drew a connection between the struggle that began in 2001 and current operations against Tehran, framing the conflict as part of an enduring campaign against state-sponsored radical extremism. He stated that American service members are confronting an “Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century” and asserted that the Iranian regime had celebrated the 9/11 attacks while sponsoring proxy violence that killed thousands of American troops across Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decades.By invoking the legacy of the 2001 attacks, Hegseth sought to justify the continued use of decisive military force against Iran, arguing that current operations honor the sacrifices of past service members and address long-standing threats to American national security.