Trump calls the Iran campaign 'small potatoes' as the wedding-strike file stays open

President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on 4 September that the campaign against Iran is "small potatoes" and that he agrees with Vice President JD Vance: the fighting is not, in their wording, a war. He pointed to the present pattern of intermittent US strikes. The same exchange sat next to figures that do not look small. Public accounting of the campaign has put the cost to US taxpayers above $37.5 billion. Eighteen US service members have been killed.

Vance had said a day earlier that he would not call the conflict a war "right now" and described the exchanges as occasional flare-ups. He also said he was sceptical of Iranian reports that a US strike hit a wedding, while adding that Washington was looking into the incident. Trump, asked about those comments, chose the smaller-war framing and left the investigation in place.

The wedding in Kuhetto

Iranian authorities say a US munition struck a house in Kuhetto, in Bandar Sirik, on Tuesday during a wedding. The death toll later rose to five, including a six-year-old boy. About 70 people were wounded. A funeral was held on Thursday. Reuters published an analysis concluding the strike was likely a direct hit by a US munition rather than a ricochet from another target. The New York Times and the BBC reached similar conclusions. Vance said he doubted the US was behind the attack and that the government would investigate.

Tehran answered the week's strikes by firing at US sites in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Iraq's Kurdistan region. Iranian media said those shots were retaliation for the wedding. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, US bombardment of sites inside Iran killed at least 19 Iranians by local counts. Trump told reporters on Friday that the United States may hit Iran's Pickaxe Mountain "very soon."

What the words are doing

Calling the campaign something other than a war has legal and political work to do. It keeps the operation inside the register of strikes and raids rather than a declared conflict that would force a longer debate in Congress and among allies. It also clashes with the diesel price printed the same week. The American Automobile Association put the US average for diesel at $5.85 a gallon on 4 September, three cents above the June 2022 record set after Russia invaded Ukraine. A year earlier the same gallon cost $3.71. Regular gasoline averaged $4.15, with California at $5.81. Those numbers are the domestic receipt for a campaign the White House is trying to shrink in language.

The same week Trump said he would ask European governments to repay the United States for military aid and munitions sent to Ukraine, and he criticised reports that US stockpiles have been drawn down by the Iran fighting. He also suggested Washington might not back Britain in a future fight with Argentina over the Falkland Islands because London has not supported the Iran campaign. That line ties a South Atlantic treaty question to a Gulf war the administration will not name as a war.

The open file

The wedding investigation is now the test of the smaller-war claim. If the munition was American and the target was a house full of guests, the administration will have to explain how intermittent strikes stay precise. If the finding is otherwise, Tehran will reject it. Either way, the $37.5 billion and the 18 dead remain on the ledger, and Pickaxe Mountain is on the target list the president chose to mention in public.