War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that Iran’s decision to strike neighboring countries has backfired strategically, driving Gulf states that had hoped to stay out of the conflict ‘into the American orbit’ as the U.S. prepares to dramatically increase firepower over Tehran.

‘What Iran is doing by targeting allied countries that would otherwise want to stay out of this, they’ve actually pulled them into the American orbit,’ Hegseth said during a briefing at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

He cited the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as countries now offering expanded cooperation, arguing that Tehran’s retaliatory campaign has strengthened regional alignment with Washington rather than weakened it.

U.S. military officials say Iran has launched strikes against a growing number of countries in the region since the conflict began, with CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper noting Tehran has targeted at least a dozen nations.

Rather than isolating the United States, Hegseth suggested Iran’s actions are consolidating support for the campaign.

‘The amount of firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically,’ he said, pointing to additional base access and increased bomber operations.

Hegseth also addressed allied base access, including the United Kingdom’s initial hesitation to grant U.S. forces early access to strategic facilities. He said the issue has since been resolved and that British-controlled bases are now part of the expanding U.S. air campaign.

‘It was unfortunate that … the Brits didn’t, from day one say, ‘Hey, go ahead and have access,’’ he said. ‘But we got there, we got there. And that’s now part of the way that we’re operationalizing bomber runs. … The amount of firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically, and part of it is that we’re going to have even more basing.’

Gulf and Arab governments have publicly condemned Iranian missile and drone strikes on their territories as violations of sovereignty and threats to regional security, while stopping short of criticizing U.S. military action.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan issued a joint statement strongly condemning Iran’s ‘indiscriminate and reckless’ missile and drone attacks against sovereign territory in the region, reaffirming their right to self-defense.

Regional leaders have framed Iran’s actions as dangerous escalations rather than legitimate retaliation, underscoring a rare moment of unified public opposition among Gulf Cooperation Council members.

Beyond the Gulf, Azerbaijan has also protested what it says were Iranian drone strikes on its Nakhchivan exclave, which injured civilians and damaged the international airport. Baku summoned Tehran’s ambassador and said it reserved the right to take retaliatory measures in defense of its territory, even as Tehran denied responsibility for the incident.

Some regional analysts say Iran appears to have miscalculated by striking at U.S. assets in third-party nations.

‘It was absolutely inevitable that the Iranians would seek to lash out, to widen the conflict … but all they’ve really done is made everybody quite mad, and that was a really bad calculation on their part,’ said Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Peter Doran, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted the shift in regional alignment.

‘It would have been unbelievable just one year ago to see Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states lining up with the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic,’ he said.

Hegseth dismissed suggestions that the war is spiraling outward, arguing that Iran’s actions are instead clarifying the battlefield and strengthening U.S. partnerships.

‘This idea that it’s expanding or going — no,’ he said. ‘It’s actually simplifying in a number of ways exactly what we need to achieve and how we’ll achieve it.’

Pentagon officials say U.S. bombers have struck nearly 200 targets in the past 72 hours, destroyed more than 30 Iranian naval vessels and significantly reduced missile and drone attacks since the opening days of the operation.

Officials maintain that the campaign’s objectives remain limited to degrading Iran’s ability to threaten Americans and its neighbors, even as the president has suggested he needs to have a say in who becomes Iran’s next leader.

‘I think the president’s having a heck of a say in who runs Iran, given the ongoing operation we have,’ Hegseth said.

In less than a week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has gone from supporting U.S. actions against Iran to raising the issue that the U.S. and Israel ‘acted without engaging the United Nations or consulting with allies, including Canada’ to on Wednesday not ruling out Canadian military participation in the conflict.

‘He’s been all over the place,’ Nader Hashemi, a Canadian-born associate professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, told Fox News Digital. ‘It doesn’t look very good for him or for the government of Canada.’

‘My own reading is that he’s influenced by public opinion and his understanding of Canada’s national interests and where they lie, and specifically the relationship with the United States at its core. His first statement was very supportive of the American-Israeli attack and then he walked it back two days later when he got a lot of pushback because there was no reference to Canada’s support for international law, rules-based order and the United Nations.’

When asked whether Canada would join the U.S. military against Iran during his visit to Australia on Wednesday, Carney told reporters that ‘one can never categorically rule out participation’ and that Canada ‘will stand by our allies, when makes sense.’

However, former NATO commander and retired Canadian major-general David Fraser told CTV News Channel that it’s ‘unlikely’ that Canada would be drawn into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran unless a member state, such as Turkey, called for assistance under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

Carney’s latest comments signal the Canadian prime minister’s desire to ensure that ‘it doesn’t create a deeper rupture with the United States than already exists,’ said Hashemi.

Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of the Canadian Conservative Party, summarized the prime minister’s changing position on the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran with a post on X: ‘We support it, we’re upset about it, we think it’s bad, but also, we might join in.’

Her colleague, Michael Chong, the Conservative shadow minister for foreign affairs, told Canadian broadcaster CTV that ‘supporting the airstrikes and at the same time calling for a secession of those strikes’ is ‘an inherent contradiction.’

Carney has also had pushback from the political left.

After the airstrikes against Iran began, Alexandre Boulerice, foreign affairs critic for the New Democratic Party of Canada, said in a statement that his party ‘strongly condemns the American and Israeli bombings of Iran’ and ‘deplores the Carney government’s decision to blindly support this dangerous venture by Israel and Donald Trump’s administration. We want Canada to be a voice for diplomacy, peace and international law.’

During his Australian tour this week, the prime minister said that ‘hegemons are increasingly acting without constraint or respect for international norms or laws while others bear the consequences.’

He also said Canada supports ‘efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,’ but noted that Canada ‘take[s] this position with regret because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order.’

Carney said that ‘Canada calls for a rapid de-escalation of hostilities and is prepared to assist in achieving this goal.’

At a security and defense conference in Ottawa, also this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said that Canada calls ‘on all sides to respect the rules of international engagement’ and that ‘international law binds all parties’ in the Middle East conflict.

The results of an Angus Reid Institute poll, involving 1,619 respondents and released on Tuesday, showed that 49% of Canadians opposed the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes against Iran, while 34% were supportive.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., was just tapped to replace embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, but first he must be confirmed by the Senate.

But with anger and frustration over the direction of the Department of Homeland Security under Noem still simmering, and the agency still shut down, Senate Democrats aren’t likely to make that an easy process.

Still, Mullin said he was ready for the challenge ahead.

‘We’re going to try to earn everybody’s vote,’ Mullin said.

‘I want people to understand I’m not — when I go into this position, yes, I’m a Republican, yes, I’m conservative,’ he continued. ‘But the Department of Homeland Security is to keep everybody — regardless of whether you support me, if you don’t support me, regardless of what your thoughts are — I’m here to enforce the policies that Congress passed.’

Mullin’s confirmation process could become the next battleground for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats to continue their campaign of handcuffing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

They have so far rejected every offer from the White House on compromise reforms to the agency and on Thursday again blocked a full-year funding bill to reopen DHS.

‘I’ve been asked if I would support Sen. Mullin as Noem’s replacement,’ Schumer said on X. ‘The answer is a resounding NO. The rot in DHS is deep, much deeper than any individual. It’s a question of policy, not personnel. The Senate should not consider any DHS Secretary nominee until DHS and ICE are reined in.’

Mullin said that he would sit down with Schumer if the top Senate Democrat wished, but reiterated that he was after every Democrats’ vote for the job.

‘At the end of the day, all I can do is do my job,’ Mullin said. ‘I’m not going to get into, you know, a tit-for-tat, but if they have real concerns, I’m going to listen to it. I’m going to see if it’s practical. But nothing’s going to prevent me from doing my job.’

Floor and committee time is a valuable commodity in the Senate, which is currently processing a colossal housing package and still trying to reopen the very agency Mullin has been tapped to run.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., hopes to get the ball rolling quickly to fill the position, given that President Donald Trump set Noem’s exit date from the job for March 31.

‘He’s obviously pretty well-vetted around here, so hopefully we can get the process going, because I think that’s a position that’s going to need to be filled quickly,’ Thune said.

And Noem’s confirmation last year wasn’t a smooth process, either. The Senate confirmed her 59 to 34, with only seven Senate Democrats voting with all Republicans to install her in the position. 

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., was one of the few who joined Republicans to confirm Noem. He’s also the top-ranking Democrat on the panel and will be heavily involved in vetting his colleague for the position.

When asked by Fox News Digital if he envisioned hurdles for Mullin ahead, Peters said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘I haven’t thought about it yet,’ he said. ‘This is all new information, so give me time to process it. Then I’m happy to answer questions.’

Trump’s decision to tap Mullin comes as support among Senate Republicans for Noem was crumbling. She faced a grilling from Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Kennedy, R-La., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier in the week, and many Republicans weren’t quick to say they still backed her afterward.

Others were still in her corner.

‘I think Kristi Noem has done a good job,’ Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said.

Still, despite what could become a grueling confirmation effort, Mullin has at least one Senate Democrat he doesn’t have to worry about supporting him: Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who called the lawmaker a ‘nice upgrade’ compared to the outgoing Noem.

‘Yes, we’re in a different party, but this is the choice,’ Fetterman said. ‘I want to work together to make our America more secure.’

House Democrats largely voted to allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown to keep going on Thursday, shrugging off Republicans’ concerns about the increased domestic terror threat amid the U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran.

It comes hours after President Donald Trump shocked Capitol Hill by ousting DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and appointing Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., as his replacement.

But that did not stop the vast majority of Democrats from voting against a bipartisan DHS funding bill aimed at funding the cabinet agency through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. 

The bill did pass the House in a 221 to 209 vote, with all but four House Democrats voting against it — a significant indicator that Noem’s firing is not enough to tip the scales in the ongoing standoff. The Democrats who voted in favor of the funding bill are Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, Jared Golden, D-Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, D-Wash., and Don Davis, D-N.C.

Nearly identical legislation already passed the House in January, but House GOP leaders wanted to force the vote again in light of heightened national security concerns within the country’s borders.

While largely symbolic, it shows Republicans’ pressure strategy is falling on deaf ears as the left continues to protest President Donald Trump’s strategy to combat illegal immigration.

The bill was the product of original bipartisan negotiations that followed the longest-ever full government shutdown in U.S. history, which ended in November after 43 days.

It would fully fund all aspects of DHS while also including new guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demanded by Democrats, like a body-worn camera mandate and new required training on public engagement and de-escalation.

But Democrats walked away from the deal en masse amid fallout from Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which saw two U.S. citizens shot and killed by federal agents during anti-ICE demonstrations there. The operation has since ended.

Democratic leaders are still insisting on withholding their caucus’ support, however, until further restrictions are put on ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents on the ground in various cities.

And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., signaled to reporters that Noem’s ouster was not enough.

‘It’s not like Kristi Noem was the one who was involved in negotiating anything. She was a corrupt lackey. So we were dealing with the White House before, and we’re going to continue to deal with the White House at this point,’ he said.

Meanwhile, the resulting DHS shutdown has taken on new significance as the U.S. continues its campaign to take out Iran’s top leadership and its military sites.

Republican leaders are warning that keeping DHS in a shutdown state is dangerous for national security, given its jurisdiction over agencies that monitor threats from home and abroad.

‘Now is the time to be vigilant at home and to ensure that all of our doors are locked, so to speak,’ Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a press conference Wednesday. ‘And yet, as all this is happening, we have Democrats running around here playing political games in Congress. It’s infuriating. They’ve shut down the very agency that is responsible for securing the homeland.’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called Republicans’ argument ‘insane’ when asked by Fox News Digital earlier this week.

‘Donald Trump launches an unauthorized war in the Middle East. … He decides that he wants to spend billions of dollars to bomb Iran, rather than spend taxpayer dollars to lower the grocery bills that are crushing the American people, and then wants to use his unauthorized war as an excuse to continue spending taxpayer dollars to brutalize or kill American citizens by continuing to unleash ICE without restriction on the American people?’ Jeffries posed. ‘I think it’s ridiculous.’

It’s the Senate, however, where passing that DHS funding bill is actually key to ending the shutdown. The upper chamber voted again Thursday on the original legislation that passed the House in January, but it failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.