Donald Trump keeps telling us he has wiped out the Iranian regime. “We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders,” he said last week. At various times he has insisted, “Their entire Navy is at the bottom of the Sea,” or claimed, “They have no navy, it’s been knocked out.” As CNN recounted:
The president has said for weeks that Iran had “no navy,” “no military,” “no air force” and “no anti-aircraft systems.” …
“They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100% annihilated,” Trump said. “We are unstoppable as a military force.”
And yet somehow this “sunk” navy last week was able to fire on three vessels, seize two, and maintain the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. It seems — shocker! — “taken out” does not mean, as the dictionary tells us, “to extract or remove,” it means to leave the enemy potent military assets. And “no” does not mean “none,” but rather “some powerful military equipment able to inflict real harm.” Even the Pentagon has let on that Trump was lying.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran maintains more military capabilities than the White House or Pentagon has publicly admitted, according to multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of intelligence on the matter,” CBS News reported.
“Taken out”? Hardly:
About half of Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles and its associated launch systems were still intact as of the start of the ceasefire in early April, three of the officials told CBS News.
Roughly 60% of the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still in existence, the officials said, including fast-attack speed boats.
That IRGC naval force “built for asymmetrical warfare and equipped with many smaller vessels… [is] hampering oil shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Israel seems to agree on Iran’s missile capacity. “While Israel believes it caused significant damage to Iran’s weapons program, recent estimates by IDF intelligence officers indicated that Iran still possesses around 1,000 ballistic missiles, down from roughly 2,500 at the outset of the war, and will soon recover the ability to start building up its stockpile again,” the Times of Israel reports.
Even worse, Iran inflicted more damage than previously reported on U.S. forces. “American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair,” NBC News reported. “The Iranian regime swiftly retaliated after the Trump administration attacked on Feb. 28, hitting dozens of targets across U.S. military bases in seven Middle East countries. Those attacks struck warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft.”
In other words, not only was regime change a fantasy, but the notion that without incurring any losses we could completely “take out” Iran’s military capacity, leave it defenseless, and ensure the Strait would remain open was balderdash as well.
We should not be surprised that Trump vastly exaggerated our military success. He also told us after the 12-day war last June that Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated,” although he told us in February Iran was on the verge of building a nuclear weapon. Exciting videos made Trump feel better, but they told him (and us) nothing about the considerable military assets Iran retains.
The news gets even worse: The Pentagon briefed Congress that “[i]t could take six months to fully clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines deployed by the Iranian military, and any such operation is unlikely to be carried out until the U.S. war with Iran ends.” And so long as the talks stall, the six months do not begin to run. (Trump insists he is the “least pressured person ever,” meaning he is actually frantic to end this.) Trump’s assertion that Iran was clearing mines was apparently made up out of thin air. Now he threatens to “shoot to kill” any Iranian vehicles laying mines.
The pressure on economies around the world and the damage wrought from elevated oil prices will not disappear anytime soon. To the contrary, as the New York Times reports, “The latest attacks show that Tehran still has a stranglehold on the strait that allows it to ratchet up the pain on the global economy, even though the U.S. military has struck some 13,000 targets in Iran and set up a naval blockade against it.” The report dryly notes that this gives “Iran leverage” in negotiations. Iran, in other words, has plenty of cards and is outmaneuvering and out-negotiating the flummoxed president who can not accept the disaster he caused.
No wonder Iran is holding tight, showing only cursory interest in talks with the U.S. It observes Trump blink (Extend the ceasefire! Say Iran doesn’t know who’s in charge!), and calmly corrects Trump’s ludicrous misinformation. The Iranians understand perfectly well that Trump is trying to mitigate the humiliation by lying about the extent of our military success, exaggerating Iran’s vulnerability, and often feigning no interest in the fate of the Strait.
Trump’s penchant for saying utterly false things to make himself or his followers feel better or to manipulate the markets does not change reality. Rather than figure out which statements are accurate, it is best to assume that virtually everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is untrue.
Forget words like “taken out” and “no” in reference to Iran’s forces. Iran is the only combatant that has “taken out” anything, namely, the free navigation of the Strait of Hormuz. Thanks to Trump, Iran has a bargaining chip it never possessed: the ability to put a chokehold on oil and thereby wreak havoc on every nation’s economy (except Russia, which is reaping excess profits). And when we use “no” (as in “none” or “not any”), it should be in reference to the unraveling U.S. president: He truly has no idea what to do about a debacle of his own making, and we therefore have absolutely no clear path to achieve any of our strategic aims.
Makes me crazy how little pushback he gets when he spouts his nonsensical lies.
The thing that needs to be taken out is the garbage of this administration.