As missiles continue to fly in the Middle East, a battle of rhetoric is also being waged between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Thursday in a post on X that the United States had suffered “painful damage” from what he described as Iran’s “targeted and effective strikes,” adding that Washington had “no exit plan.”

He said U.S. officials privately acknowledged the situation while publicly making statements aimed at “managing the markets,” and warned that Iran would continue pursuing the “aggressor” until it was punished. 

On Wednesday, U.S. Defence ​Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Iran’s leaders were “toast”.

“America is winning - decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,” he told the reporter.

Trump has suggested that the conflict with Iran could go on for four weeks.

U.S. lawmakers from ​both major political parties have criticised the Trump administration for not spelling out a “day-after” strategy, which appears to largely hinge ​on the hope that ⁠the Iranian people will rise and determine their own future after decades of repression.

“We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to,” Hegseth said, adding that the only limit was Trump’s desire to achieve specific objectives.