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'This War Is Dumb as Hell': Military Historian Assesses Trump's Disaster in Iran
"Every day this war goes on makes both the United States and Iran weaker, poorer, and less secure."
Mar 25, 2026
Even as President Donald Trump signaled this week that he'd like to quickly wrap up his unconstitutional war with Iran, some experts are warning that the president has put himself in a situation with no easy way out.
Military historian Bret Devereaux, a teaching assistant professor at North Carolina State University, published a lengthy analysis of the war on Wednesday in which he described it as a failed gamble that Iran's regime would simply crumble in the face of a well-executed series of aerial strikes.
Devereaux said that this was highly unlikely given the nature of the Iranian regime, which is structured to maintain itself up and down the chain of command if one or even several of its leaders are killed.
And now that it's very clear that Trump's gamble of overthrowing the regime hasn't paid off, Devereaux wrote, he will be at the mercy of events beyond his control.
"Once started, a major regional war with Iran was always likely to be something of a 'trap,'" he contended, "not in the sense of an ambush laid by Iran—but in the sense of a situation that, once entered, cannot be easily left or reversed."
While Iran's response to the strikes carried out by the US and Israel in June 2025 was relatively tepid, Devereaux said, once Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the goal of their latest operation would be regime change, the Iranian government took the extraordinary step of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, sending global energy prices skyrocketing.
It has been this threat to shut down the strait, as well as the massive difficulty and cost it would take to occupy a nation of 90 million people, the historian continued, that has kept every US president for the last five decades from launching an invasion of Iran.
At the same time, he continued, Trump cannot now simply walk away while leaving Iran with the ability to take the global economy hostage whenever it pleases.
"The result is a fairly classic escalation trap: Once the conflict starts, it is extremely costly for either side to ever back down, which ensures that the conflict continues long past it being in the interests of either party," he wrote. "Every day this war goes on makes both the United States and Iran weaker, poorer, and less secure but it is very hard for either side to back down because there are huge costs connected to being the party that backs down."
Summing up his argument, Devereaux declared, "This war is dumb as hell."
Devereaux's analysis was echoed by Ilan Goldenberg, senior vice president and chief policy officer at J Street, who wrote in a social media post Wednesday that the US and Iran appear to be caught in an escalation trap, as exemplified by the Trump administration's recent decision to send more military personnel to the Persian Gulf.
"The much more important story right now isn’t diplomacy—it’s the thousands of US troops being mobilized and moving toward the Middle East," he wrote. "That movement strongly suggests preparation for further escalation, with Kharg Island emerging as the most likely target. For any objective observer, the likely Iranian response to a US move on Kharg is obvious: escalation, not capitulation. Tehran would almost certainly respond by expanding attacks on energy infrastructure across the Gulf."
Goldenberg added that "the most plausible off-ramp" will involve Trump simply declaring victory while leaving the regime intact and with vague promises to not produce a nuclear weapon, although he said that likely wouldn't come until after more escalation and destruction.
"Better to accept this likely outcome today rather than six months from now," he advised.
In a Wednesday analysis published at Liberal Currents, University of Illinois political scientist Nicholas Grossman cast doubt on Trump's ability to simply wash his hands of the Iran conflict and walk away.
Part of the issue, said Grossman, is that Iran simply might want to keep inflicting economic damage on Trump to make him think twice before launching a future attack on the regime.
"In hard power dynamics, this is the strongest position the Islamic Republic has ever been in, the most leverage they have over the United States since the 1979-80 hostage crisis," Grossman wrote. "Iran is likely thinking of longer-term security. If they can endure more US-Israeli bombing—and the war so far indicates that they can—then they can increasingly establish their ability to crash the global economy, a deterrent even the United States must respect."
Given that Trump is unlikely to want to be seen as a "loser" for simply accepting Iran's control of the strait, Grossman concluded, "that points to stablemate or escalation, more death and destruction, and a global economic disruption that will be bigger than many currently expect."
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Top Iranian Lawmaker Accuses Trump of Trying to ‘Manipulate' Markets With Claims of Talks
"Fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped," said the speaker of the Iranian Parliament.
Mar 23, 2026
As the Iranian government denied President Donald Trump's claim on Monday that "productive" talks are taking place between the US and the Middle Eastern country, which the White House has joined Israel in attacking for close to a month, a top Iranian lawmaker accused the president of attempting to manipulate global markets with his claim.
"No negotiations have been held with the US, and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped," said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, in a post on X.
Ghalibaf's theory appeared to be supported by developments in the financial markets shortly after Trump's seemingly significant announcement Monday morning.
As the market analysis and commentary website The Kobeissi Letter reported, by 7:10 am Eastern—six minutes after Trump appeared to allude to diplomatic strides toward ending his unprovoked war—the S&P 500 surged by more than 240 points, adding more than $2 trillion in market capitalization.
Iran's Foreign Ministry denied Trump's claim 27 minutes later, and by 8:00 AM Eastern the S&P 500 had fallen by 120 points, erasing nearly $1 trillion in market value.
"That's a $3 TRILLION swing market cap in 56 minutes, just in the S&P 500," said The Kobeissi Letter. "What is happening here?"
Ahead of Ghalibaf's remarks, The New Republic also posited that Trump's "news" of productive discussions was "just a ploy at market manipulation."
The quick denial of talks from the Foreign Ministry raised "serious doubts as to whether the president is telling the truth or just saying whatever he can to stop gas prices from rising more and more as Iran locks down the Strait of Hormuz."
Since the US and Israel began its assault on Iran on February 28, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply flows, and sent gas prices soaring to nearly $4 per gallon, up from $2.91 before the war.
The war, which has killed more than 3,200 Iranians and exploded into a larger conflict, with more than 1,000 people killed in Lebanon and at least 60 killed in Iraq, has appeared politically toxic for Trump, who campaigned on "no new wars" and making life more affordable for Americans.
Nearly 80% of people who voted for Trump in 2024 said last week that they hope for a quick end to the war.
Some observers noted that even the president's five-day deadline for negotiations to conclude—after which he suggested the US could launch strikes against Iran's energy infrastructure—appeared to revolve around the week's closing of energy markets on Friday.
"Every week, when markets open, Trump makes these kinds of statements to drive down oil prices," said Iranian academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi. "Even his five-day deadline aligns with the closure of the energy market. But in reality, there are no negotiations underway, nor does Trump have the capability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's firm threat has once again forced Trump to back down."
On Saturday, Trump had threatened to "obliterate" Iran's power plants if it didn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday. Iran responded with a threat to target energy infrastructure across the region, including in Israel.
A senior Iranian official told Drop Site News that "no new developments have occurred” diplomatically between the US and Iran.
Iran's conditions for ending the war, the official said, include a simultaneous ceasefire in Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq. The government is also demanding an end to US sanctions on Iran's procurement of defensive weapons and equipment.
“The fact that he publicly responds to [Iran’s position] by posting a tweet," the official said, "is solely intended to manage the financial markets—nothing more."
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How the Iran War Could Lead to a Crash Worse Than 2008
It’s too late to prevent the inflation of an AI bubble or to advise against a US attack on Tehran. At this point, the most we can do is to hope for a quick end to the war and for some improvisational brilliance among the world’s leaders of government and finance.
Mar 21, 2026
Several commentators have remarked that the United States’ war on Iran carries echoes of 2008. I’ll argue here that a potential financial crash this year could actually be much worse.
The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 was the biggest economic crunch since the Great Depression. Unemployment surged, topping 10% in the US. Global stocks lost trillions of dollars in value. Major brokerage houses collapsed. The US auto industry only survived thanks to enormous government bailouts. How could another crash top that?
Consider the causes. The 2008 Great Recession resulted from a confluence of three factors:
- Failed US wars in the Middle East, in that instance against Iraq and Afghanistan. Many economists argue the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars contributed to the GFC by fueling massive American budget deficits and worsening trade imbalances, and by creating a “capital flow bonanza” that triggered the US credit boom. While not the sole cause, the war compounded the vulnerability of the US economy.
- Soaring oil prices, following the plateauing of world conventional oil production in 2005. Oil demand continued to rise but the global supply of oil did not follow suit. On July 11, 2008, crude prices hit $147 per barrel, their all-time high. Since the economy runs on energy and oil is the world’s most important energy source, oil prices have a way of impacting all industries. Financial markets crashed three months after the oil-price peak.
- A bursting financial bubble inflated by subprime mortgages in the US and financial derivatives traded worldwide. The mortgage bubble involved $1.3 trillion to $1.5 trillion in high-risk loans issued during the 2000-2006 housing boom. It was a house of cards waiting to tumble.
The resulting unwinding of debt and derivatives came within a hair’s breadth of turning into a massive bank run and general economic collapse. Governments (led by the US) bailed out industries and banks, lowered interest rates to zero, purchased large tranches of financial securities, and instituted enormous fiscal stimulus programs and tax cuts. Even with these rapid and maximum-scale efforts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, the GFC led to widespread housing foreclosures, a near-40% downturn in the S&P 500, and a substantial increase in the poverty rate.
Now consider the following:
- Today’s AI financial bubble is four times bigger than the subprime mortgage bubble of 2008 and 17 times bigger than the dot-com bubble of 2000.
- The Iran war, though so far not involving US ground troops, could possibly end up being more problematic than the Iraq invasion of 2003, if only from the standpoint of flows of energy and international trade. The war is likely to result in real oil shortages and prices potentially even higher than those seen in 2008. Additionally, more of the Middle East is now involved in hostilities, and oil and gas production and shipment infrastructure is being damaged or destroyed, thereby undermining the long-term economic prospects of the region, as well as destabilizing its politics. No one knows how this will end.
- For the US economy, warning signs were already flashing before the war: Stubbornly high inflation, a bad jobs picture, and worsening consumer sentiment were indicators of a looming recession.
- The final factor can be stated as a question: Would today’s US Treasury head be as successful at averting financial doom as was Henry Paulson in 2008? Then, the US was able to enlist government and business leaders from the world’s key countries in cooperating to fashion a collective survival strategy. Would current US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have similar success, given the recent global collapse of trust in US leadership?
In view of the possibly catastrophic consequences of the attack on Iran, many people wonder what motives could have justified it. Logan McMillen argues in Foreign Policy in Focus that the so-called “Donroe Doctrine” intends to freeze China out of the Western Hemisphere and to deprive it of cheap energy:
The strategy is entirely zero-sum. By turning the Middle East and the Caribbean into militarized chokepoints, the United States is suffocating China’s independent oil supply lines, starving its industrial capacity while guaranteeing temporary windfall profits for Western supermajors. Concurrently, from the lithium flats of Bolivia to the ports of Peru, Washington is deploying right-wing proxies and military coercion to systematically dispossess Chinese capital in Latin America, re-colonizing the Andes to secure the supply chains of the 21st century.
Other commentators see the war as being spearheaded by members of the Christian Zionist movement, which desires a fulfillment of biblical prophecies of the battle of Armageddon and the return of Jesus.
Even if McMillen’s analysis is sound and there is an arguably rational motive behind the war, that doesn’t mean the campaign will go according to plan or that it will achieve its aims. Many analysts see it already careening off the rails.
It’s too late to prevent the inflation of an AI bubble or to advise against a US attack on Tehran. At this point, the most we can do is to hope for a quick end to the war and for some improvisational brilliance among the world’s leaders of government and finance.
Meanwhile, it would be smart to make whatever preparations you can. For folks in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s time to start planning this spring’s food garden. You might want to plant a few more rows of beans than you do most years, so you have enough to share with neighbors.
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