Had Donald Trump studied the consequences of wars launched on faulty assumptions and strategic miscalculations, including the experiences of his predecessors Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as his own first presidency, he might have resisted Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated pressure for war with Iran.
Previous US presidents rejected Netanyahu’s efforts to draw Washington into such a confrontation. Trump, however, ultimately fell into what the author describes as Netanyahu’s strategic trap, launching two wars against Iran within eight months and committing what has become an increasingly costly strategic error.
The warnings were hardly new. Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu cautioned that one of the greatest mistakes in war is underestimating an opponent and misjudging his strength. Niccolò Machiavelli warned that a war can be started when one chooses, but cannot necessarily be ended at will. Henry Kissinger similarly argued that wars often emerge not from the absence of power, but from a miscalculation of the balance of power.
Trump now finds himself trapped in precisely such a war, unable to secure a decisive victory, force Iran into submission, compel it to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or obtain an Iranian surrender.
The conflict is consequently eroding Trump’s reputation, America’s international standing and his domestic popularity, while threatening the Republican Party’s narrow majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate ahead of the November midterm elections.
Six Months of War
Trump and Netanyahu launched the operations dubbed “Epic Fury” and “Zionist Lion’s Roar” against Iran on 28 February 2026, publicly presenting the war as necessary to prevent an immediate Iranian nuclear threat.
According to the argument presented here, however, the undeclared objective was regime change in Tehran and the fulfilment of Netanyahu’s long-standing ambition to become the Israeli leader who delivered a historic defeat to Iran.
Trump later acknowledged that Iran did not pose a threat to the United States and was not seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon. He had also suggested that the war would be little more than a short campaign lasting six weeks.
Instead, the conflict has entered its seventh month, with no clear end in sight. It has become an exhausting war of attrition characterised by a damaging state of neither war nor peace.
One of the clearest signs of strategic failure by major powers is the depletion of their capabilities in wars launched on mistaken assumptions, particularly when battlefield gains cannot be converted into negotiating leverage capable of forcing concessions from the opponent.
Gulf Allies Pay the Price
The war has also endangered the security of Washington’s regional allies and threatened some of their most important sources of national income.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has deliberately targeted vital and civilian infrastructure across Gulf Cooperation Council states, including energy and oil installations, refineries, gas facilities, power stations, desalination plants, airports and other infrastructure, with Kuwait particularly affected.
This has transformed the war from a confrontation intended to reinforce US regional dominance into a conflict that has directly exposed America’s allies to greater insecurity.
US Generals Warn of Strategic Overstretch
According to an assessment attributed to senior American generals, military commanders delivered a serious warning to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the end of August after a classified intelligence and military assessment was leaked.
Senior US military commanders, regional combatant commanders and officials responsible for the Indo-Pacific theatre, where American forces are focused on confronting China, reportedly warned that the war with Iran had “exhausted America’s capabilities beyond acceptable levels and lasted far longer than it should have”.
US military leaders had previously warned Hegseth that the conflict was draining the armed forces’ readiness to confront China and Russia by dispersing America’s strategic focus.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was also said to have resigned in protest over Hegseth’s policies.
The warnings focused on the risk that America’s preoccupation with Iran could give China an opportunity and greater incentive to expand its influence while Washington remains absorbed in the Middle East. Beijing could also use the situation to help Iran withstand economic strangulation through sanctions.
Military commanders also warned that US stockpiles of ammunition, weapons, missile defence systems and precision-guided weapons were approaching dangerous levels of depletion.
The underlying problem, according to the assessment, was poor planning for a conflict that had evolved into a costly war of attrition after Washington underestimated Iran’s capabilities and failed to achieve the promised “quick victory”.
The consequences, military officials reportedly warned, now extend to US national security itself.
From Security Guarantor to Security Risk
The war has also damaged confidence in the United States among its principal allies, with Washington increasingly viewed not as a source of protection, security and stability, but as a source of instability that may itself threaten allied security.
That represents a classic form of strategic failure, compounded by Washington’s inability to achieve either the declared or undeclared objectives of the war, including the defeat and surrender of Iran.
Trump therefore turned last Monday to another tactic, described as “economic ostracism”.
According to the argument presented here, this amounts to an implicit admission that the military campaign against Iran has failed.
Sanctions, Hormuz and Domestic Anger
Sanctions have historically failed to fundamentally change the behaviour of authoritarian governments prepared to tolerate severe hardship among their populations, with North Korea and Russia cited as examples.
Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
Inside the United States, public anger is rising over the cost of living, food prices and fuel prices.
Trump’s approval rating has reportedly fallen to 33 per cent, while 70 per cent of Americans oppose the war. Concerns are also growing that Republicans could lose their narrow majority in the House of Representatives and potentially their majority in the Senate.
Cracks Inside MAGA
Trump’s own MAGA movement, the broad electoral base that returned him to office, is also experiencing divisions and defections.
The frustration stems in part from Trump’s departure from the promises he made during his election campaign, when he argued that he had been elected to make America great again, avoid new wars, end existing conflicts and unite Americans.
Instead, critics argue, the opposite has occurred. Trump has entered two wars and further complicated regional and domestic conditions.
Even what he presented as an achievement, the creation of a “Global Peace Council”, has been overshadowed by the failure to halt the genocide in Gaza.
Trump’s Claims of Ending Eight Wars
Trump has repeatedly claimed, often with characteristic exaggeration, that he ended eight wars in eight weeks after beginning his second presidency, presenting this record as evidence that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Some of the conflicts he cites, however, were not wars in the conventional sense, while others are described here as invented or exaggerated conflicts, including supposed wars between Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, and Egypt and Ethiopia.
Yet the most dangerous conflict of his presidency, the war with Iran, remains beyond his ability to end.
That outcome is presented as the inevitable consequence of strategic miscalculation and an inaccurate assessment of Iran’s capabilities and willingness to absorb pressure.
The political consequences may become visible within two months, when Trump and the Republican Party face congressional elections under the weight of an unresolved war that was supposed to have ended within weeks.
