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center for international policy
Trump's Iran Disaster an Even Bigger US Strategic Defeat Than Vietnam: Expert
"The United States is inarguably in a weaker position than when it began this war of choice, with core US strategic objectives harmed."
Jun 17, 2026
President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice with Iran has dealt the United States an even bigger strategic defeat than the one it suffered in the Vietnam War, according to one expert.
In an essay published on Tuesday by Foreign Policy, Paul Musgrave, associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, made the case that the damage done to the United States' reputation and credibility in the wake of the Iran war are significantly more severe than anything the country suffered in the wake of Vietnam.
Even though the Vietnam War went on for far longer and resulted in far more deaths than Trump's Iran war, Musgrave argued, the US nonetheless exited it with little long-term damage to its global power.
"Compare that situation with the aftermath of Trump’s war," Musgrave continued. "The United States is inarguably in a weaker position than when it began this war of choice, with core US strategic objectives harmed."
Musgrave noted that while the US and Israel had initial success in decapitating Iran's leadership at the beginning of the conflict, this only left the hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to run the country.
By failing to achieve the stated aim of regime change and by empowering even more radical elements within Iran, Musgrave added, Trump has severely damaged other nations' willingness to trust the US for national security protection.
"Regional allies, many of whom reportedly argued against the venture, bore the brunt of the costs of the fighting," the scholar wrote. "Most tellingly, Iran learned that its capacity to throttle the Strait of Hormuz could deliver economic leverage on a worldwide scale."
Writing in The New York Times on Wednesday, national security journalist WJ Hennigan argued that the United States' strategic defeat has laid bare the limits of US military power to bend weaker nations to its will.
In particular, he pointed out that the US, which spent $1 trillion on its military last year, could not take out even a majority of Iran's missile stockpiles.
"Yes, the wonder weapons that American industry cranks out, like cruise missiles and air-defense interceptors, have proven impressive on the battlefield," Hennigan wrote. "But the war has exposed the underlying weaknesses of depending on weaponry that’s extremely expensive and time-consuming to deliver. During an April 30 congressional hearing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated it could take 'months and years' to replenish the stocks that had been used in the war."
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, similarly said that Trump's Iran war had resulted in a strategic defeat for the US. However, he also expressed hope that this defeat could mark a turning point in US foreign policy circles regarding the applications of American power throughout the world.
"There’s a longstanding US bipartisan consensus around wildly inflating the Iranian threat," Duss wrote in a social media post. "Trump’s war, a strategic defeat, was an expression of that consensus. If... ending the war puts the US and Iran on path to a more normal relationship, that will be a positive thing."
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‘Complete Bullshit’: Expert Torches Hegseth Claim That War Was Necessary to Prevent Iranian Nuke
“It feels insane to have to keep repeating this," said Matt Duss, pointing to US intelligence assessing that "Iran ended nuclear weapons-related work in 2003."
May 01, 2026
President Donald Trump and his administration have continued to claim that their historically unpopular war with Iran was necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon despite ample evidence to the contrary.
During testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Hegseth insisted that the US military had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capabilities with strikes carried out in 2025, while maintaining that a full-scale war was necessary because the country hadn't given up its "nuclear ambitions."
HEGSETH: Their nuclear facilities have been obliterated
SMITH: Whoa whoa whoa whoa. We had to start this war, you just said, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat. Now you're saying it was completely obliterated?
HEGSETH: They had not given up their *ambitions*… pic.twitter.com/T8c1vTfC0T
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 29, 2026
Merely having the "ambition" to create a nuclear weapon would not make Iran an imminent threat, and US intelligence found no evidence that Iran was anywhere close to developing such a weapon.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified under oath before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee last month that Iran’s nuclear weapons program had been “obliterated” by US-led airstrikes that were launched last year, and that there “has been no effort since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability."
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, pointed out in a social media post that US intelligence showing that Iran lacks the capacity to build nuclear weapons goes back decades.
"It feels insane to have to keep repeating this: The 2007 [National Intelligence Estimate] assessed that Iran ended nuclear weapons-related work in 2003," Duss explained. "That assessment has not changed. The claim that this war was necessary to prevent an Iranian nuke is just complete bullshit."
Despite multiple US intelligence reports indicating that Iran is not an imminent threat to the US, Trump has continued to hype its supposed nuclear ambitions to justify his war, which he launched illegally without any congressional authorization in late February.
In a Thursday interview with Newsmax, Trump baselessly claimed that Iran would immediately launch a nuclear weapon after acquiring one, even though doing so would risk massive retaliation by the US, which has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads at its disposal.
"I will tell you that Iran would use the nuclear weapon if they had it," Trump said. "I deal with these people. I know people. They will use their nuclear weapons, and we're not going to give them a chance to do it."
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'Vile and Un-American': Tuberville Blasted for Demanding Mass Expulsion of Muslims
Republican Senator from Alabama, said one critic, is "unfit for public office and should face censure and removal."
Dec 15, 2025
A Republican senator is getting blasted for a bigoted social media rant in which he declared that Islam is "not a religion" while advocating the mass expulsion of Muslims from the US.
In the wake of Sunday's horrific mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia, which left 16 people dead and was carried out by two men with suspected ties to the terrorist organization ISIS, Tuberville lashed out at Muslims and promoted their mass deportation.
"Islam is not a religion," Tuberville, currently a Republican candidate for Alabama governor, wrote on X. "It's a cult. Islamists aren't here to assimilate. They're here to conquer. Stop worrying about offending the pearl clutchers. We've got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we'll become the United Caliphate of America."
Tuberville neglected to note that a Muslim man named Ahmed al Ahmed, a Syrian refugee who gained his Australian citizenship in 2022, tackled and disarmed one of the alleged shooters before they could fire more shots at the Jewish people who had gathered on Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah.
Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said that Tuberville's comments on Muslims were akin to those made by former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, an infamous segregationist who fought the US federal government's efforts to racially integrate state schools.
"Senator Tuberville appears to have looked at footage of George Wallace standing in a schoolhouse door to keep Black students out and decided that was a model worth reviving—this time against Muslims,” Saylor said. “His rhetoric belongs to the same shameful chapter of American history, and it will be taught that way.”
Tuberville was also condemned by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who hammered the Republican senator for using an attack on Jews in Australia to justify prejudice against Muslims in the US.
"An outrageous, disgusting display of islamophobia from Sen. Tuberville," wrote Schumer. "The answer to despicable antisemitism is not despicable islamophobia. This type of rhetoric is beneath a United States senator—or any good citizen for that matter."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), meanwhile, described Tuberville's rant as "vile and un-American," and said that his "bigoted zealotry" against Muslims would have made America's founders "cringe."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said Tuberville's rhetoric was completely at odds with the US Constitution.
"This is a senator calling for religious purges in the United States," he wrote. "A country whose earliest colonists came fleeing religious persecution and whose Founders thought that protecting against state interference with religion was so important it was put into the First Amendment."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, noted that Tuberville was far from alone in expressing open bigotry toward Muslims, as US Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) and New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino had also made vicious anti-Muslim statements in recent days.
"A congressman says mainstream Muslims should be 'destroyed,'" he wrote. "A senator says Islam is not a religion and Muslims should be sent 'home.' A NYC councilwoman calls for the 'expulsion' and 'denaturalization' of Muslims. Fascist anti-Muslim bigotry is now explicit Republican policy."
Williams also said Tuberville was "unfit for public office and should face censure and removal."
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for US congress in Missouri, countered Tuberville with just two sentences: "Islam is a religion. Tommy Tuberville is an unrepentant racist."
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