Donald Trump ends the third week of the Iran war confronting a crisis that seems to be slipping out of his hands: Global energy prices are surging, the United States stands isolated from allies and more troops are preparing to deploy despite his promise the war would be only a “short excursion.”
A defensive Trump called other NATO countries “cowards” for refusing to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and insisted the campaign was unfolding according to plan. But his declaration on Friday that the battle “was Militarily WON” clashed with the reality of a defiant Iran that is choking off Gulf oil and gas supplies while launching missile strikes across the region.
Trump, who took office promising to keep the U.S. out of “stupid” military interventions, now appears to control neither the outcome nor the messaging of a conflict he helped to initiate. The lack of a clear exit strategy carries risks both for his presidential legacy and his party’s political prospects as Republicans scramble to defend narrow majorities in Congress in the November midterm elections.
The Reuters article isn’t doing this justice in my view – in part because they’re still measuring the conflict by past US administration standards, not the new reality.
Last year, Hegseth and Gabbards chat leak, while they were bombing Yemen I believe, included negative remarks about Europe, and what they felt was the unfair role of ‘world police’ that the USA had in keeping the SoH open. Even back then, they wanted to pull back, to force Europe to pay more to maintain that trade route, to force gulf states to pay more for protection, etc. Their animosity/aggression towards Europe has not been subtle, they openly make claims that Europe faces civilization collapse as a result of ‘too much multiculturalism’ and so on. The US relaxing Russian oil sanctions, was done intentionally as part of the USA’s open hostility and aggression towards the EU, and wanting to splinter the EU block. The US isn’t just “not much of an ally” anymore, they’re an active threat against western democracies.
Like Hegseth literally dragged all the generals into a meeting last year, and did a speech telling them to commit war crimes, not to be ‘bound by rules of engagement’. Anyone who didn’t like it, was fired. He likely setup a war crime tracker to measure as a KPI for the military – blow up a girls school, sow terror, get a bonus. Hell, they blow up fishing boats in Venezuela, and joke/laugh about that war crime at the state of the union. This is America now.
So in terms of conflict goals – destabilizing Europe has been pretty successful so far, though it is a long game. The US is also using the conflict to extort gulf nations for large sums of money to continue protecting assets, so they’re getting paid more for their presence in the region – another win, based off that leaked chat. The wars also quieted Trumps Epstein stuff domestically, so it’s succeeded in his personal reason for the timing. Israel’s using the cover to conduct even more brutal campaigns in places like Lebanon and the West Bank; the USA is using the cover from the conflict to try and pull a Gaza on Cuba. All progressing well, by the new American calculus. Media needs to revamp their scorecards, still measuring success by antiquated things like humanitarian relief/improving peoples lives etc. Pain and suffering for Iranians, Europeans, and anyone that’s not a Republican elite, is likely one of the measures by which they deem the operation a success.
And Trump’s broadcast repeatedly, clearly, that he doesn’t respect military personnel. If you die in the Iranian conflict, you’re basically a loser in Trump’s view, just like POWs he’s made similar statements to in the past. He doesn’t give a shit if troops die, or are wasted, so long as they secure more money for oligarchs from rich gulf nations etc.
Hell, even something like the fluctuating oil prices – a win for American oligarchs, given they just beat the shit out of Venezuela and are now pilfering their oil. “We secured a new source of oil by committing war crimes in South America, so now us Americans are ready to fuckup the oil trade in the middle east, as it’ll mostly impact those stupid Europeans that we hate”. Another “success”.