This Awful Iran War Belongs to Trump—and It's Going Horribly

President Donald Trump is a victim of his own success. After a quick strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities last June and the capture of Venezuela’s president and First Lady in January, the US military, the illegality of those operations notwithstanding, made war look easy and Trump feel omnipotent.

Three weeks into a more daunting excursion into Iran, Trump is now a desperate leader.

Trump’s Latest Grudge Match

With Trump, everything is personal. A growing body of evidence suggests that a principal objective in attacking Iran was the assassination of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. For example:

• When the CIA learned that the Ayatollah and top Iranian officials would be meeting in a militarily accessible location, a previously planned nighttime strike was moved up to the middle of the day.
• On Sunday night, March 1, shortly after reports that the US-Israeli attack had killed the Ayatollah, Trump said, “I got him before he got me.” He was referring to an alleged plot to kill Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign as retribution for the January 2020 US strike that killed Iran’s military leader Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,
• The desire to downplay Trump’s desire for vengeance explains why he and his minions have offered more noble—and contradictory—justifications for the war, including:
• To help the Iranian people secure their freedom (Trump);
• To attack Iran because Israel was going to do it and that would result in Iran’s attack on US assets in the Middle East (Secretary of State Marco Rubio);
• To attack Iran first, not because Israel was going to do it anyway, but because Trump had a gut feeling that Iran was going to attack the US (Trump). But Pentagon officials informed Congress that no intelligence supported Trump’s opinion;
• To eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability (although Trump claimed to have done that with the June attack).

Mission Accomplished?

Whatever his motivations, deploying the might of the military force was the beginning and the end of Trump’s thinking. He and his advisors are now flailing in the aftermath.

Iran has divided its global adversaries by holding the world’s economy hostage. Closing the Strait of Hormuz to the US and its allies sent world markets reeling as the price of oil increased by 40 percent and the price of gasoline in the US rose by almost $1.00 per gallon. Trump is trying to sell the line that such costs in the short run will pay off in the long run, but few are buying it.

Trump’s Desperate Ploys

The absence of any US strategy becomes clearer by the day. Trump has thrown everything at the wall in the hope that something will stick. So far, nothing has.

• He floated a $20 billion insurance guarantee for ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz – but not everyone lives in Trump’s world in which everything has a price.
• He suggested using US military escorts for the tankers but offered no timeline; the risks to US military personnel and equipment would be enormous.
• He tried shaming oil tanker crews to “show some guts” and continue sailing through the Strait – even as tankers burst into flames when trying to do so. Maybe Trump should go first.
• He pleaded with world leaders to join his “team” to reopen the Strait for shipping, saying, “Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren’t. Some are countries that we’ve helped for many, many years. We’ve protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren’t that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm matters to me.”
• He ridiculed allies refusing his requests to join a war that he started without consulting them: “We have some countries where we have 45,000 soldiers, great soldiers, protecting them from harm’s way, and we have done a great job. And when we want to know, ‘Do you have any mine sweepers?’ ‘Well, would rather not get involved, sir.’”
• He made threats that are not-so-veiled: “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”

Attacking the Messenger

In a futile effort at damage control, Trump accused media outlets of dispensing “fake news” about the growing Iran debacle. They “should be brought up on charges of TREASON,” he posted. In the same tirade, he said that he was “thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.”

Hearing and heeding his master’s voice, Carr shared another Trump post criticizing news coverage of the Iran war and issued this hollow threat: “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up... Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s lengthy criticism of Iran war coverage included a special message for CNN: “The sooner David Ellison [the son of billionaire Trump supporter Larry Ellison] takes over that network, the better.”

This much is certain: Trump will never take responsibility for any failure of his policies, including the Iran war. When his deportation operation became a scandal and one of his worst political liabilities, Kristi Noem became a casualty. If Trump’s Iran war continues to go badly, he’ll need another scapegoat. Hegseth has been living on borrowed time since the Signalgate scandal. He should have been fired long ago.

But make no mistake. Hegseth is just Trump’s useful idiot. This is and always has been Trump’s war. It began as his personal war of retribution, ignored predictable consequences for the world, and never had an endgame strategy.

And now it has gone terribly wrong.

Correction: An earlier version of this article indicated a $200 million insurance program, but that figure should have been $20 billion and has been updated.