Photo: Alamy
The briefing room at the Pentagon on Tuesday morning got a laugh after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman Dan Caine of the JCS addressed a wild report alleging that the Iranians have desperately recruited “kamikaze dolphins” to fight back against the U.S. Armed Forces.
“I can’t confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins,” Hegseth joked, barely cracking a smile. “But I can confirm they don’t.”
When asked to clarify such reports, Gen. Caine remarked, “I haven’t heard the kamikaze dolphin thing. It’s like sharks with laser beams, right?”
The general’s comment, “sharks with laser beams,” is a nod to the 1997 film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
In all seriousness, Gen. Caine focused on the broader question at hand: whether reports of Iranian aggression would restart combat operations in the Middle East, amid the fragile ceasefire.
“The threshold of restarting is a political decision above my pay grade,” Gen. Caine stated. “What I’ll say is, it’s low harassing fire right now. It feels like Iran is grasping at straws to try to do something across the southern flank.”
He described any violence from Iran, at this time, as “low-level kinetics.”
Whether a deal with Iran can be reached soon has been the question of the hour since the ceasefire took effect in early April.
During remarks in the Oval Office on Tuesday, President Trump expressed his displeasure about Iran’s behavior, noting, “I can say this, Iran wants to make a deal. What I don’t like about Iran is they’ll talk to me with such great respect, and then they’ll go on television and say, ‘We did not speak to the president…’ So, they play games, but let me just tell you, they want to make a deal. And who wouldn’t? Their military is totally gone. We could do anything we want to them.”
