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Notes -
Judging the Iran War on its initial goals:
There has been so much talk about the Straight of Hormuz, that people are forgetting this was never an initial goal of the war. It's easy to forget that the Straight of Hormuz was open and not tolled by Iran before the war. So by definition, how could a war aim be to something that you already have. This would be like the US declaring War on Canada and saying one of the aims is to take New York.
So looking back, it's important to see what they initially said. This is straight from the White House itself [https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/04/president-trumps-clear-and-unchanging-objectives-drive-decisive-success-against-iranian-regime/](This is straight from the White House itself:)
Tonight, @POTUS will address the nation on Operation Epic Fury.
From day one, the objectives have been clear: obliterate Iran’s missiles and production, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure it never acquires a nuclear weapon.
Trump:
President Trump (March 2): “Our objectives are clear. First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities… and their capacity to produce brand new ones — pretty good ones they make. Second, we’re annihilating their navy… Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon… And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
Vice President JD Vance (March 2): “Whatever happens with the regime in one form or another, it’s incidental to the President’s primary objective here — which is to make sure the Iranian terrorist regime does not build a nuclear bomb.”
Secretary Rubio (March 3): “Our objectives remain, as they’ve been identified from the beginning and the President laid out clearly yesterday. Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and we will not allow Iran to hide behind the immunity of a massive short-term ballistic missile inventory, or the ability to make them or launch them… As well as the destruction of their navy.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (March 4): “The mission is laser-focused: obliterate Iran’s missiles and drones and facilities that produce them, annihilate its navy and critical security infrastructure, and sever their pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb.”
It's obvious from these statements there were four goals:
The Straight of Hormuz is a red herring. The fact that we are even talking about it at all means we have gone backwards. The US has accomplished only one of its war aims and that was to destroy their Navy. The rest are not done and at best are TBD. If you had said 6 months ago that the war would still be ongoing that only one goal would be accomplished, what would you have said about the status of the war?
To me, and this is just my opinion, people would have said the war is not going well. Based on those four goals explicitly laid out by Trump, I don't see how you can say we are close to a victory.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ydld0gykpo](By the way, Trump himself says that the war will continue until at least November.)
Here he again explicitly mentions the nuclear weapons as a warm aim (that is not accomplished yet). Personally, I don't see this war ending any time soon. At this point, the Iran government has shown it is resilient and it is in a literal fight for its life. They can't back down now. Meanwhile, I don't see any way the US can accomplish its war aims without staying until the regime collapses. How long that takes I think is anyone's guess.
Meanwhile, stocks of crude oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell to 285 million barrels last week, the lowest level since November 1982, according to data from the Department of Energy.
Seems to me that all 4 goals are accomplished with the important caveat that they are not permanently accomplished which would require Iran acquiescence or regime change.
Trump likely believed, after Venezuela, that Iran's regime was likely to collapse immediately after the attack. It certainly seemed possible at the time that a new dictator would rise and sign a deal broadly favorable to U.S. interests in exchange for being left alone.
I think it's clear now that didn't happen.
But nor did the histrionic predictions of the so-called geopolitical experts come true. Iran didn't shut the Hormuz. Iran hasn't caused more than a couple dozen U.S. casualties. Oil didn't go to $250. We didn't send in ground troops. And, to the best of my knowledge, not one of these people have come out and said they are wrong.
Why does Iran even matter anyway? Probably it doesn't except that it makes the Republicans less likely to win the midterms. As the party in power, they will be blamed for the crime against humanity of gas being slightly more expensive.
The dissident right view on this conflict seems to be that Iran is not worth the squeeze because domestic electoral victory is more important than foreign policy goals. For the record, I agree. But at the same time, Trump has never thought like that, and that's why he's where he is. Mike Pence would have been happy to sit on his hands and let Iran develop nukes to keep his poll numbers in tact. But there's a reason he's not around anymore. For better or for worse, Trump acts rather than reacts. Will this be his undoing? Maybe, but so far he has kept getting away with it.
It was very clear at the time that it was stupid to believe this and indications are Trump was warned of this by all of his advisors except Hegseth. If there was a time to intervene, it would have been in early January when there were massive anti-government protests, not at the end of February when the government had shot everyone who was feeling inclined towards revolt. Unfortunately, at that point the Trump admin was busy with Operation Caribbean Shakedown.
This sounds like cope. Wasn't Trump touted by both himself and his supporters as a guy who wasn't going to get snarled up in neocon adventurism? Why should voters cut him some slack on starting a war that drove up gas prices (and is continuing to do so), has killed thousands of civilians, alienated allies, and didn't achieve any of its substantive goals (i.e. regime change or denuclearization)?
Also, I'm not clear on what Mike Pence has to do with this, considering he was and is significantly more hawkish than his replacement.
Didn't the US start building up assets right after the protests? It unfortunately takes time to move things into the region... US logistics is good, but not magical.
The US had deployed numerous naval assets to support Caribbean operations (leaving a gap in coverage in Centcom) and was quite slow to redeploy them if it was planning to intervene in support of protestors. The most charitable interpretation is that the Trump admin imagined their intervention would reignite protests, but, as mentioned, this was pretty questionable given the massacres that had already taken place.
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