Oblivious to his own failure, which dwarfs George W. Bush’s premature declaration of victory in Iraq, Donald Trump stupidly mimicked the “Mission Accomplished” slogan last week in advance of the six-month mark of his disastrous, illegal, and hugely unpopular war. In response to Trump’s AI-generated meme of a sign bearing that bellicose slogan, Peter Baker of the New York Times observed:
Except that it is not. Mr. Trump’s war in Iran…is anything but accomplished. Half a year in, the conflict has deteriorated into a quagmire of the president’s own making with no clear goals, no obvious strategy and no end in sight.
He finds himself stuck in a maddening purgatory between full-fledged combat and genuine peace. He is reluctant to resume an all-out bombardment despite his thunderous threats, yet has been unable so far to broker an agreement to end the war on satisfactory terms. He has no victory to take credit for, yet is paying the political price in terms of the toll on the American economy and his party’s chances in the fall elections.
Bluntly put, Trump has produced a defeat of unprecedented proportions, handed the Iranian leadership a new lease on life, and given Tehran control of the Strait of Hormuz — a benefit of more utility than a nuclear weapon — without obtaining restrictions on its nuclear weapons program, despite Trump’s assertions to the contrary.
Historian Robert Kagan writes:
Iran has, with American help, completely reconfigured the power structure of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The dominant power in the region going forward will be Iran, not the U.S. or Israel. Neighboring countries are already making their adjustments to this new reality. More distant powers will too. For years, the world has been dealing with an Iran constrained. It will now discover what Iran unleashed looks like. . . . .
Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz is a more useful instrument of power than a nuclear weapon would be. A nuclear weapon might deter an attack, but control of the strait gives Iran leverage every day, over dozens of countries. With it, Iran can reward friends, punish enemies, extract revenue, force the loosening of sanctions, and make governments think twice before opposing Iranian policies. It can do all of this without firing a shot, and while preserving the ability to threaten violence when necessary.
Iran’s regime remains intact, retains its missile program, can reconstitute its terror network (with monies it will extract from control of the Strait), and claims bragging rights that it laid low a decrepit, delusional bully who threatened it with genocide.
Most obviously, Iran demolished the U.S.’s status as protector of international waterways. With control of the Strait, Iran “is also claiming the right to decide who may pass. It has proposed excluding vessels associated with governments it deems hostile, such as the U.S. and Israel, and it has demanded compensation from nations that participated in attacks against it,” Kagan explains. In place of free passage through a key waterway, Iran has “establish[ed] the principle that passage through the strait will henceforth be a privilege that Tehran can grant, condition, delay, or deny.”
As strained as Iran’s economy is, and as much pain as its people have absorbed, its regime is widely expected to outlast the Trump presidency. The U.S. will struggle to maintain any semblance of sanctions against Iran, which stands to collect fists full of currency from ships seeking passage through the Strait.
Trump’s empty threats of a new era of economic warfare against Iran based on secondary sanctions on other countries are as devoid of credibility as his military ultimatums. Vivian Salama writes for The Atlantic:
[S]econdary sanctions make the U.S. more vulnerable when its own economy is already under pressure, with the technology, manufacturing, and financial sectors likely to bear the brunt. Oil and gasoline prices have already risen, inflation remains a problem, and voters are unhappy with a conflict they were told would make their country safer. The American public’s approval of the war with Iran has fallen to its lowest level since the first days of the conflict…. With the midterms approaching, Republicans have little reason to welcome another round of economic pain, let alone the possible U.S.-induced global financial crisis that [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent talked about.
Salama confirmed that regional experts see Trump’s sanctions threats “less as an escalation strategy than as the latest step in the administration’s continuing search for an exit from the war.” The pattern is eerily familiar:
The administration keeps reaching for a bigger threat because the last one failed to deliver a decisive victory, or even a face-saving off-ramp. Deadlines move. Threats get grace periods. “Maximum pressure” is followed by more maximum pressure. The question is no longer simply how Washington plans to force Iran to negotiate. It is how the U.S. gets out of a war in which its options seem only to shrink.
In the real world, the U.S. has failed to achieve any of its stated goals (e.g., eliminating Iran’s missile arsenal, ending its nuclear program, obtaining regime change, curbing its regional influence) and certainly has no clear strategy for doing so now that its complete aversion to resuming military action is out in the open.
The harm to U.S. national security is profound. Senior brass has warned the hapless Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that our continued deployment is unsustainable, with the most dire warning coming from the chief of Naval operations, who reports only one quarter of the fleet is deployable.
Our munitions stocks are dangerously low, impairing military options in the region and beyond. “The U.S. has rushed so many munitions to the Middle East to fight Iran that military planners are concerned the loss of firepower is diminishing America’s ability to defend against potential threats from China and Russia,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The cuts have been so deep that the U.S. inventories in Europe of PAC-3 Patriot air defense interceptors and ATACMS [Army Tactical Missile System] surface-to-surface missiles are deemed to be ‘beyond critical.’”
Within the region, our influence is at a low ebb, with Gulf allies now looking for partners other than the U.S. As Kagan notes: “Saudi Arabia’s rejection of the U.S.-and Israel-backed Abraham Accords in favor of a strategic compact with Pakistan and Turkey hints at the shape of the future.” Outside the Middle East, both allies and foes recognize that the U.S. lacks the strategic smarts and staying power to defeat even a second-rate power.
So forget “Mission Accomplished.” Don’t bother with “victory” triumphalism. This international humiliation far surpasses U.S. setbacks in Vietnam or even Iraq. Perhaps the worst strategic blunder in U.S. history is entirely Trump’s doing, aided and abetted by incompetent Cabinet flunkies and congressional Republicans too cowardly to live up to their oaths to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Booting Republicans from office en masse is the essential first step in addressing this catastrophe.
Thank you, dear Jen. We miss your face and speaking voice, even as we send you gratitude for your continuing Contrarian essays. Thank you for your forceful writing. Rest your precious voice for as long as it takes to heal. With gratitude, Sandra
As usual, Trump is trying to distract from his incompetence and corruption by throwing out squirrels, most recently his claim that Venezuela is going to be a huge bonanza for the United States, a claim so absurd it's being easily dismantled (see Krugman today, for example). If I had to pick one issue at the moment that needs sustained focus, it's how he's positioning himself to overthrow our OWN government, via disrupting the mid-term elections. So yeah, "63 days" and glad to hear the Democrats are "war gaming" the threat, but do they really have the chutzpah they've so often lacked to take MAGA to the mat on this one?