There’s plenty of boastful propaganda from and for this Trump administration when things look like a military rout against Venezuela’s Nicolás Madura, drug cartels or now in Iran.
It’s less clear that anyone on Team Trump is willing to stand tall when the news is not so clear. Accountability for a war in Iran is no more at hand than it is for the excesses of ICE tactics or tariff effects on prices or the impact of Epstein files mishandling on victims of sexual abuse.
On Monday, Donald Trump told a CBS reporter, “I think the war is very complete, pretty much. They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force.” He added that the U.S. is “very far” ahead of his initial 4-5 week estimate on its “little excursion.” War/Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said basically the opposite, that there would be plenty more war.
We can’t even figure out whether we have won.
Yet with each passing day in this undeclared war in Iran it seems clearer that Iran, unlike Venezuela, is not going to stand by passively. The job of winning any victory in a war lacking goals with an enemy that refuses to roll over is going to be problematic to anyone but Trump.
The decision to choose Mojtaba Khamenei as a new leader is a sign of defiance. So, too, are the actions of a dispersed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps even in diminished capacity to continue to lob missiles and to encourage retaliation despite air superiority for US and Israeli forces. Rather than any Washington acknowledgement that the going may be tougher than promised, what we get from our leadership are more dismissive words about lethal domination.
Emerging information that increasingly suggests that it was a “precise” U.S. tomahawk missile that killed 175 schoolchildren draws attempts to shift eyes toward Iranian weapons rather than take responsibility for errant intelligence or aim. Still, Trump and Hegseth blame Iran for killing its own children.
Even the central target in the war — stopping Iran “imminent” nuclear weapons capabilities — is crumbling under review by experts never included in any of the abandoned “negotiations” abruptly ended to send in the jet fighters and missiles. The White House remains silent on the degree to which there was no immediate threat.
There seems no U.S. ownership for any sudden rise in retaliatory attacks on civilian targets in Israel and Gulf nations, on global shipping, on various military bases and embassies, or arising from would-be sympathizers by lone actors seemingly motivated by the violence in Iran.
A bar killing of two in Texas by a suspected Iranian sympathizer and an attack on New York’s Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s home under investigation as an Islamic State incident pass without acknowledgement that the war in Iran is causing ripples globally.
No Need to Own Mistakes
In this egoistic, personality-launched war by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there is no heed for possible miscalculation and no acceptance for blame.
We are becoming accustomed to the daily repetition that Trump is bravely ending 47 years of bad behavior by Iran to justify preemptive killings and bombings by the U.S. Those decades of ayatollah rule provide the reason for war now, complete with threats of sending in ground troops to achieve nebulous goals that may include retrieval of nuclear stockpiles or control of oil fields.
There is little White House discussion about whether it was Netanyahu whose lobbying campaign for war at a time when Iran had suffered setbacks was the real reason for Trump to push the attack.
In these early days, there is no sign of renewed nuclear weapons development, no sign of uprising from within Iran, no outbreak of demand to take back the country from its dictators or sudden emergence of a more moderate majority.
Instead, there is continued belligerence of a large Iranian military in control acting like a disturbed beehive. If anything, we learned this week through leaks that the U.S. intelligence services were advising that the full-scale attack would not result in Trump’s desired results.
Just Declare Victory
Amid rising gas costs, rapidly inflating prices, and global worries, it seems impossible not to notice Trump’s dismissive attitude towards whatever doesn’t go exactly his way. There is no presidential capacity for complexity — or responsibility. It apparently took all White House hands on deck to get Trump to even acknowledge dead US servicemen at Dover.
This White House seems to mistake military successes for diplomatic persuasion to change Iran’s national outlook and priorities.
We have yet to hear Trump acknowledge that there is something very wrong about reports that Russia’s Vladimir Putin is sharing targeting information with Iran even as Trump continues to withhold weapons aid from Ukraine in its self-defense against Putin. We only hear that Ukraine needs to concede. Trump talked with Putin on Monday.
In a week of shifting explanations and goals, Trump has walked back from demanding an end to a theocratic state, from an anti-democratic government willing to shoot its own people for protests, from a state aligned with Russia and showing interest in China. Trump already has all but declared victory, telling the Brits that their late offer of help is no longer needed.
Trump already has indicated he is ready to move on to Cuba next.
If this is victory, what do we call a mess that requires global cleanup?
