Trump’s Big Speech on His Iran War Was a Big Nothing Burger

If the national audience expected some breathtaking new developments or a strategic vision from President Trump’s belated justification for his war of choice on Iran, it should be disappointed after his speech. He said that the Iranian navy and air force had been all but erased and its missile capability had been degraded through U.S. and Israeli pummeling. He may be correct, but as the United States found out in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq conflicts, tactical military victories don’t ensure that any war will be won. Wars are fought for political ends. Let’s briefly assess whether the United States has achieved the stated, but ever-changing goals, originally enunciated by the Trump administration and also evaluate the positive and negative effects of the war to date.

Goals: 

1. Use military power to topple the Iranian regime. The U.S. has killed many top Iranian leaders, but in the desperation of war, more radical and ruthless leaders often rise to the top. In all likelihood, the radical Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is now running the country. Also, the common rally-around-the-flag effect when under foreign attack may make some of the protesters and people opposed to the regime reluctantly accept the regime. The regime will also likely be more intolerant of any dissent. 

2. Keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Last June, Trump and Israel directly attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. Trump promised that they had been “obliterated.” However, experts have said the enriched uranium to make a bomb could still be under the rubble or may have been dispersed. In his speech, Trump said Iran had begun to rebuild this program. Yet in almost a month of the current war, targeting the nuclear facilities did not appear to be high on the priority list for either Israel or the United States. Also, if the enriched uranium is not retrieved, Iran can dig it up and use hidden centrifuges to process it further to bomb-grade level with know-how that is more than 80 years old. In all likelihood, Iran can still get a bomb if it wants one and now has a bigger incentive to do so to keep Israel and the U.S. at bay in the future.

Effects of the War

Although the U.S. has scored tactical military attrition on the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard forces, the administration seemed surprised by the widely expected Iranian effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic and retaliatory missile and drone attacks on U.S. allies—Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

Trump said the U.S. tactical objective of degrading Iranian martial capabilities would soon be completed—perhaps in three to four weeks–he did not say what he was going to do about the possibility of continued Iranian strikes on Israel and the Gulf Arab states. As for the Strait of Hormuz, Trump told states dependent on oil that goes through the Strait that they would be responsible for seizing it, because the U.S. didn’t depend much on oil going through the Strait. Of course, the Strait is only closed because of Trump’s war. This rhetoric is the equivalent of your neighbor unloading a truck of manure on your driveway and telling you that you are responsible for cleaning it up. 

Nevertheless, Trump has built up U.S. ground forces in the region, and they still may be used on dangerous missions to take the shores or an island in the Strait; extract nuclear material from the interior of the country; or invade Kharg Island, where 90 percent of Iran’s oil is processed. Trump likes to keep everyone guessing, but what is certain is that Trump is in a jam, and the American people are no clearer as to how all this is going to end after the speech than before it. The best bet is that oil prices will continue to rise, destabilizing economies in the U.S. and around the world, as long as any blockage of the Strait of Hormuz continues.