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Notes -
Donald Trump Won the Iran War
From an essay endorsed by Pete Hegseth on twitter:
Critics say that Iran is winning because they now control the Straits of Hormuz. In reality it appears that trade in the Gulf is returning to pre-war levels as it risks the Straits or bypasses them entirely:
Critics say that the Iran War has driven America's allies to shake off American leadership. In fact we see the opposite:
America recently carried out strikes in Iraq, working with the Saudi military, to push out Iranian militias, and is now concluding multi-billion dollar business deals:
Meanwhile, how's America's blockade going?
Iran’s oil exports stall and Kharg Island idles under US blockade
It's possible that Iran has been unable to successfully sell it's oil for even longer:
Iran is still able to make money from oil tankers that left the Gulf during the last ceasefire and are currently in Asia, but that crude will all be sold soon and Iran will start to be squeezed even more, unless they come to a deal with the US or somehow engineer a military miracle.
Iran is facing inflation of ~87.9%, which is to say, the average Iranian has lost almost half of their wealth compared to this point last year:
How's Iran's Nuclear Program doing? The New York Times put out this report today concluding that Iran's program is "slowed but not stopped":
[https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/07/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-program.html](Trump Vowed to Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program. Here’s Where That Stands.)
However, under the headline, here's where things stand:
Iran has enough nuclear material to manufacture 10 nuclear bombs? Wow, what are they going to do with it?
America destroyed Iran's capability to "convert or enrich" that uranium, and then locked the uranium that remains deep under collapsed tunnels that can be bombed again as soon as Iran tries to retrieve it.
The sites that were bombed last year appear to remain inoperable, which is to say that, after America bombed them, they have not been used.
(The New York Times then concludes that this is both a significant setback and also doesn't actually matter at all. Well, that's what I heard three months ago. I'm sure that three months from now, people will still be saying that Iran can build a nuke anytime it wants to, it just doesn't want to.)
So here's where we're at now:
Trump, Iran, and Oman are apparently on the cusp of announcing another deal to reopen the Strait. But it increasingly doesn't matter: Iran needs to make a deal because their economic crisis is so acute, while America and the rest of the Gulf can shrug it all off as increasingly a minor inconvenience.
Trump won. Trump was right from the beginning. The Iran war is below-the-fold news now.
Iran will never toll the strait, Iran will never bring the global economy to its knees, Iran will never have nuclear weapons. Iran cannot defeat America militarily or overcome the blockade. The Iranian regime will eventually fall, or make significant concessions, or surrender, or continue to limp along losing strength and relevance -- it doesn't matter which. Either way, Iran loses, America wins, the writing is on the wall.
Trump won. Iran lost.
I don't see any way to reasonably define the party who gets their entire command structure decimated, their air defenses dogwalked, and any infrastructure they care about vaporized on demand as the 'winner' of a given conflict.
That said, I will admit that I underestimated the IRGC's sheer stubbornness in the face of such a display of dominance. Its one thing to take every reasonable effort to avoid losing face, its another to keep pissing in the enemies eye, full knowing that they'll drop missiles on you over the weekend.
There remains the issue of Iran being able to threaten their regional neighbors with cheap drone strikes on important bases and infrastructure. They seem willing to carry out such harassment indefinitely unless their ability to afford it it is completely remove or there's some kind of uprising that finally removes them from power.
This seems to be devolving towards a possible North Korea situation, except without nukes.
So the actual strategic win seems up in the air still.
If the U.S. ends up forced to swap focus over to, say, Taiwan, Iran might be able to re-entrench its position. If they prove they can outlast the onslaught, that, from a game theoretic perspective, makes it far less likely they'll ever tap out in the future.
So perhaps the question is, is this a battle of willpower, or sheer materiel?
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