By Musa Mdluli

MBABANE:United States Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have said that, the US is not seeking to topple the government in Iran via “regime change” and is not at war with the country in the wake of its unprecedented surprise attack overnight on three of Iran’s nuclear sites, Aljazeera reported on Sunday evening.

The comments followed Washington, DC joining Israel’s strikes on its arch-foe, which have been met by daily retaliatory strikes from Iran and are now in their 10th day.

But Vance said on Sunday that the US had successfully set back Iran’s nuclear programme, adding that United States President Donald Trump now hopes to pursue a diplomatic solution.

Speaking on the NBC News show Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, he maintained his country was “not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear programme”.

“We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it’s already been built out. We want to end their nuclear programme. We want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here,” Vance said.

Meanwhile, Hegseth claimed the series of US strikes against Iran “devastated” its nuclear programme, as he asserted Washington was not seeking “regime change” in Tehran. There has been no independent confirmation of how heavily the US strikes impacted the sites, or Tehran’s nuclear efforts, which it has repeatedly said are for civilian purposes only.

But the Pentagon chief urged Iran’s leaders to find an off-ramp to the conflict after Trump announced the strikes on a key underground uranium enrichment site at Fordow, along with nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.