The Strategic Defeat of the United States
Congratulations, Trump administration, you played yourself -- and America.
To understand the strategic disaster that is unfolding in the Persian Gulf, let’s take a gander at the last two columns of one of the war’s initial optimists: New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.
A few weeks ago Stephens argued that the war was going better than the conventional wisdom suggested. Comparing this war with previous U.S. military interventions abroad, Stephens argued that the initial losses from Operation Epic Fury were rather light:
To hear the critics’ version of events, an unprovoked and unnecessary attack on Iran, launched at Israel’s behest, is already a foreign-policy fiasco that has put the global economy at risk without any clear objective or endgame. As Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told NBC’s Kristen Welker over the weekend, “We’ve never seen this level of incompetence in war-making in this country’s history.”
Really? Let’s take a tour of some of the recent history….
[Paragraphs recounting the initial material costs of U.S. interventions in the Middle East, including protecting tankers in the late 1980s and the previous two Gulf wars — all of which were undeniably higher than the current operation.]
If past generations could see how well this war has gone compared with the ones they were compelled to fight at a frightening cost, they would marvel at their posterity’s comparative good fortune. They would marvel, too, at our inability to appreciate the advantages we now possess.
Last week, however, Stephens was sounding a slightly different tune:
Getting some of [the war’s] opponents to see the point may be the intent behind Trump’s reported musing to his aides that he may be willing to end the war without using force to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The president “decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade,” The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. “If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait.”
Maybe Trump is bluffing, to get more international support to open the strait. Or maybe (more likely) he’s flying by the seat of his pants. Either way, ending the war before retaking the strait would be a mistake for many reasons, even if it allowed the administration to wind down military operations in the next week or two.
Tehran would see it as victory and vindication, emboldening an otherwise fractured regime and making it less, not more, pliable in subsequent negotiations. The Saudis, Emiratis and other Gulf states would feel betrayed by a deal that forced them to bend the diplomatic knee to the Iranians after having been assaulted by them. The Europeans lack the means, the will and the nerve to challenge Iran if diplomacy failed — as it almost surely would. And the United States, despite being a net exporter of energy, would still feel the economic hit in a world in which the price of oil is essentially set globally.
When you’ve lost Bret Stephens….
Furthermore, Stephens wrote this before Trump’s prime-time, low-energy address to the nation this past Thursday. Contra Stephens’ hopes, Trump reiterated the point that European and Asian allies should take the initiative in re-opening the Strait of Hormuz, using language that sounded awfully rape-y:
We’ve beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically and in every other way. And the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Straight must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They could do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.
So to those countries that can’t get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of Iran — we had to do it ourselves — I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. Go to the straight and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy.
And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally.
The NYT’s Helene Cooper aptly summarized that speech as, “a rehash of his Truth Social posts over the past month.” The market reaction to it was, how to put it, not good.
The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World could go on and on and on and on about how ineptly this war was planned and how unpopular it is with the American people and how neither Trump nor his principals comprehend how any of this works.
But what really needs to be stressed at this point — a point that experts have been making since the first weeks of the war — is just how much of a strategic fiasco this has been and will be.
The New York Times’ Edward Wong recently looked at how the United States was doing in achieving Trump’s five articulated goals from February 28th:
Destroy Iran’s missile-industrial complex. “The U.S. and Israeli militaries have destroyed many of Iran’s ballistic missiles and launchers in airstrikes. But a large number are undamaged, and Iran continues to fire missiles in the region.” A follow-on NYT report says that U.S. intelligence has concluded, “Iranian operatives have been digging out underground missile bunkers and silos struck by American and Israeli bombs, returning them to operation hours after an attack.” So clearly, this goal has not been achieved yet.
Destroy Iran’s navy. “The two militaries have destroyed much of Iran’s navy.” Let’s stipulate this one, although it hasn’t stopped Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz. But this goal, narrowly defined, has been achieved.
Sever Iran from its terror proxies: “Mr. Trump was referring here to militias in the region that receive financial support and other types of backing from Iran. The militias are still active.” Indeed, particularly the Houthis. This goal has not been achieved yet.
Ensure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. “U.S. officials say they think some highly enriched uranium remains in tunnels buried under rubble. Sending ground troops into Iran to seize the material would be risky.” Sure, Trump no longer cares about the uranium, but this counts as a goal that has not been achieved yet.
Create the conditions for regime change. “The newly appointed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the deceased cleric, is a hard-liner aligned with a powerful arm of the Iranian military. The current government remains theocratic, authoritarian and anti-American, and continues to wage a war of resistance.” Beyond the fact that the Trump administration doesn’t understand the concept of "regime change,” this goal has not been achieved yet.
Look, call me crazy, but a military campaign against an adversary that has failed to achieve four out of five objectives does not seem like a successful operation.
If anything, however, this understates the depths of Trump’s strategic clusterfuck. Despite a lot of chatter about negotiations possibly taking place, the administration has eliminated any chance at a coercive bargaining strategy working, as the New York Times’ Wong and Julian Barnes reported earlier this week:
Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed in recent days that the Iranian government is not currently willing to engage in substantial negotiations over ending the U.S.-Israeli war, according to U.S. officials.
The assessments say the Iranian government believes it is in a strong position in the war and does not have to accede to America’s diplomatic demands, the officials said. And while Iran is willing to keep channels open, they said, it does not trust the United States and does not think President Trump is serious about negotiations….
The intelligence assessments, which appear in multiple reports, have been consistent since the beginning of the conflict, one official said.
Senior Iranian officials continue to resist making the kinds of concessions on its nuclear program and ballistic missile production that the Trump administration has demanded….
Iranian officials think they are fighting for the government’s very survival, given the strength of the American and Israeli attack, according to current and former officials. Some Iranian officials are skeptical that any peace deal would be lasting. Their leadership fears Israel could carry out a new attack months later even if Iran were to enter into a deal, U.S. officials said.
So where does this leave the Trump administration? Nowhere good. Trump can try to sell the idea that the current difficulties are just a short-term hitch and a prolonged war is worth fighting, but he’s poorly positioned to sell that narrative. Plus, the longer this fight drags out, the more he alienates NATO allies, including the United Kingdom. And as much as he doesn’t like it, such estrangement carries strategic costs.
Time’s Eric Cortellessa reports that “[Trump] is searching for a way to declare victory, halt the fighting, and hope that economic conditions stabilize before the political damage hardens.” Trump certainly wants to try that gambit — but this strategy isn’t likely to work either. Multiple reports that suggest Iran thinks it is winning the conflict. Even if Trump declares victory, Iran will continue to exert a chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz, pocketing a lot of resources to rebuild itself.
At best, Trump seems to have locked the United States into a regional version of Benjamin Netanyahu’s “mowing the grass” strategy with Hamas: periodically launching attacks whenever the antagonist builds up its capacities. But as the Financial Times’ Neri Zibler reports, this is not working out quite as Netanyahu had hoped:
After Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack, Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “total victory” in the conflict that followed. Yet more than two years later Israel’s enemies — while unquestionably weakened — are still standing.
Hamas and its gunmen still rule over the ruins of half of Gaza. Hizbollah, which Netanyahu said was “crushed” in 2024, fires a steady stream of rockets from Lebanon on northern Israel. And less than a year after he declared a “historic victory” against Iran, Israel and the US are back at war with the Islamic republic.
Rather than promise decisive triumph, the prime minister now speaks of the long arc of history, rising and falling threats, and changing the region’s “balance of power” — all as he prepares Israelis for a future in which dangers are constant and conflict open-ended….
For many Israeli analysts and former officials, Netanyahu’s inability or unwillingness to turn the IDF’s operational achievements into a strategic victory or an enduring diplomatic resolution is his ultimate failure.
“Using the word ‘doctrine’ to describe this is incredibly generous,” said a second former Israeli official. “Wherever there’s a problem he sends the military in, and there’s no doubt that more damage was done to our enemies than us, but that’s not the goal.”
“The view by the region is that while Israel is clearly strong, it can’t be trusted to be a positive and stabilising player . . . none of that diplomatic work is happening,” the former official said.
Why yes, this sounds rather familiar.
The longer this war drags on, the greater the costs for the United States. Absent a full-scale ground invasion, Iran can hold out. But Trump can’t simply declare victory and tap out either. Which means he is stuck trying to sell a strategic defeat as a tactical victory. But inconvenient facts mean that not even Republicans are buying that pitch.
Trump has lost this war. The only question now is how bigly he loses it.
To mention negotiations without mentioning the systematic campaign to assassinate people capable of negotiating is missing an important point.
I think you’re ignoring the biggest danger, which is that Trump will escalate with air strikes against energy infrastructure, leading Iran to retaliate, resulting in a catastrophe of destroyed energy resources in the region.