Donald Trump Lost the Iran War

A recent Washington Post article alleged that President Donald J. Trump exploded at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over the fact that the United States was clearly depleting its stockpiles of critical long-range precision-strike munitions and key air and missile defense interceptors. Per the piece, Trump was exasperated that Hegseth supposedly assured the president that all the critical stockpiles were full before the war began. 

The White House denies the claims made by the Washington Post.

Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. By Gage Skidmore.

President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2019 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. By Gage Skidmore.

Of course, immediately after the WaPo piece went viral, the president also publicly threatened to investigate and arrest any purported leakers in the Pentagon.

He then spent the next day trying to assure the public that the United States had all the weapons and ammunition it needed to wage the Iran War indefinitely.

Even if some of those key weapons were depleted, Trump insisted that the military had stockpiles worldwide and could draw from them if needed.

Meanwhile, the US military, since March, has been cannibalizing its other finite global stockpiles to continue prosecuting the war in Iran.

MORE – Donald Trump Won the Iran War 

But even those stockpiles are draining, leaving other regions of the world for which the US military is responsible vulnerable. 

At the start of the war, the Pentagon claimed it had annihilated most of Iran’s missile launch capabilities. However, in early May, US intelligence significantly altered the Pentagon’s original claims of success.

After all the airstrikes, Iran retained at least 50 percent of its missile launch capability. Even in its rosy battle damage assessments, the Trump administration got it wrong.

If Trump did not know how dangerously depleted the US arsenals were of these key systems needed to wage his war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, what else did he not know or understand? 

Why Did We Go to War?

When Trump took us to war on February 28, he did so with little fanfare. 

He certainly did not make the case for war (not fully) to Congress or the American people.

Most Americans still don’t quite fully understand why, six months after the first bombs fell, the US military is at war, the Strait of Hormuz (SoH) is blockaded, and how the Islamic Republic remains in power in Iran.

Indeed, the White House has done such a poor job of explaining the justification for war that overwhelming majorities of Americans oppose the war. 

At the end of last year and through early February of this year, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets of Iran to protest the deteriorating economic conditions of their country.

Many in the West assumed that was the trigger of a popular uprising against the hated regime in Tehran. 

All it would take is a little push with military force. Trump posted on his Truth Social account that “Help is on the way.” So, it seems the initial impetus of the war was the protests, and the goal was regime change.

But the popular revolution never took hold. 

After the war began, and the people never rose against the regime, President Trump asserted that if he didn’t go to war when he did, the Iranians would wipe out Israel.

The implication was that we went to war to prevent Iran from acquiring a fully operational nuclear weapons arsenal. 

Of course, that runs counter to the president’s repeated claims that his administration “OBLITERATED” Iran’s nuclear weapons arsenal last year at the end of Operation Midnight Hammer.

Apparently, the “nuclear dust” is inside the impenetrable Pickaxe Mountain underground facility. In other words, Iran’s nuclear weapons program has not been destroyed.

Now, Trump is fixated on reopening the SoH. 

Moving Goalposts

The White House argues the war has continued because Iran won’t fully reopen that vital strategic waterway.

Of course, the waterway was fully open with no impediments from Iran the day before the war began. Trump seems unwilling–for now–to abandon the war until the Iranians reopen the SoH fully with no impediments.

Even if he does get a deal, it is unlikely that the deal to reopen the SoH will be favorable to the administration’s position (therefore leading to another aspect of strategic defeat).

Tehran, meanwhile, refuses to restore the SoH to its prewar status. Tehran wants control over the waterway and wants to exact onerous fees on ships passing through the area.

All this has occurred as the US military’s already strained arsenal of key long-range munitions and air defense interceptors was depleted. 

With the SoH (and the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb closed), that means 20 percent of the world’s crude oil has not really moved through the SoH for six months (and counting), nearly 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) has not moved, nor has one-third of the world’s important agricultural inputs and essential industrial inputs. The longer that the SoH remains closed, the greater the global economic crisis gets.

Vietnam-Level Defeat 

At no point has the administration achieved any of its ever-changing objectives in the war.

It failed to achieve regime change (the Islamic Republic remains in power and is stronger than ever).

The SoH remains closed and under nominal Iranian control. 

That’s to say nothing of the fact that Iran continues producing drones like sausages, retains at least 50 percent of their missile launch capacity, and continues dictating terms in the region.

And let’s also remember that the bulk of America’s key strategic military bases in the region have either been destroyed or so badly degraded that they are essentially useless.

The likelihood that the host nations will permit the full restoration of those facilities is low. So long as the war continues, those bases will be useless.

This is not what victory looks like.

About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert

Brandon J. Weichert is the Senior National Security Editor at 19FortyFive.com. He also manages The Weichert Brief on Substack. Weichert also hosts “National Security Talk” on Rumble. He is the author of four bestselling national security books, the most recent of which is A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine (Encounter Books). Follow him via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.