The Iran war was originally intended to be short. Due to the fast-paced news cycle, this fact has been forgotten by many. On February 28, 2026, when the U.S. and Israel officially launched their military campaign, the administration was expecting this war to last only weeks, and for the Iranian regime to fall rather quickly. President Trump told The New York Times that he intended for strikes on Iran to continue for “four to five weeks.”
That was on March 1, 2026. It is now July.
The sporadic timeline shifts have not deterred the administration’s attempts to portray the campaign as a massive success. We have heard dozens of times now from Donald Trump that we have won the war, and that it will be wrapping up shortly.
However, the words of Donald Trump don’t comport with the military realities.
All pain, no gain
If we look back at the stated objectives set by the administration for what they sought to achieve from this war, none of them have come to fruition.
The Iranian’s stockpile of missiles and drones have not been meaningfully diminished.
The Iranian’s enriched uranium stockpile has not been destroyed or removed from the country.
The IRGC has not been cut off from their network of proxies across the Middle East. We have seen this in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has managed to deal some significant blows to the IDF in the south of the country. The Iranians are also considering activating the Houthis in Yemen to cut off the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, should U.S. strikes on Iranian infrastructure continue.
Regime change has also not occurred. The rhetoric coming from the White House at the beginning of this conflict described their intent to overthrow the IRGC and make room for “the people” to rise up and implement liberal democracy in its place.
Not only did this not happen, but by all accounts, this war has had the opposite effect. At the funeral of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the streets of Tehran were flooded with Iranian citizens pledging to defend their nation and avenge the death of their leader. We saw a “rally around the flag” effect, the predictable result of bombing major cities and killing government and religious leaders in foreign lands.
If the goal was to inspire an embrace of Americanism within Iran, this war has done the opposite.
Perhaps launching a war of aggression against a population and killing their religious leader isn’t the most effective way to make them embrace your influence over their society. Just a thought.
The biggest U.S. blunder has been seen in the Strait of Hormuz, where a waterway previously open to international transit has been shut down by the IRGC, putting a massive strain on the global energy market. By using missiles and drones to close the Strait, Iran has gained a major piece of leverage. They have the ability to hold 20% of the world’s energy supply hostage, inflicting tangible financial pain on U.S. consumers at the gas pump. This will also likely cause domestic political pain for Donald Trump and the Republican Party in this year’s midterm elections.
Military realities
From the very beginning of this war, reports began circulating that indicated the U.S. military was dangerously low on key munitions. Specifically, defense systems are in short supply, as many have been used up in Ukraine and Israel over the past few years.
On April 23, 2026, Jonathan Swan and Eric Schmitt reported for The New York Times:
“Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.
The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.”
In contrast, Iranians have not faced these same issues. According to reporting from The Washington Post on May 7, 2026, Iran “retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, a U.S. official said.”
Similarly, The New York Times reported on May 12, 2026, that “Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.”
While America has relied on expensive missile defense systems throughout this war, Iran has been able to deliver serious damage to U.S. bases across the region and halt nearly all shipping in the Strait of Hormuz through the launching of cheap and quick-to-make drones and missiles.
Despite this concerning data, the Trump administration has remained committed to “finishing the job.” We are still yet to hear a consistent explanation regarding when this vague objective will have been achieved. To make matters even more confusing, as we are in the midst of a desperate escalation, we are still being told daily that Iran has been defeated, and this war is essentially over. If this were true, why would we need to escalate? Make it make sense.
Next steps?
Escalation seems, at least as of now, to be on the menu. This is the only path remaining for the unhinged minority, who truly seek to destroy the Iranian regime no matter the human and financial costs.
As a result, the global economy is once again in peril. Reporting has consistently shown that so long as Iran maintains their missile and drone capabilities, they will have the ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Simultaneously, the U.S. has made it clear that they intend to “liberate” the Strait and reestablish freedom of navigation.
However assertive and confident Donald Trump appears in press conferences or on Truth Social, his words alone cannot change the realities of this conflict. He can declare victory as many times as he wants, but it doesn’t make it so.
The only way this cycle can end with a glimmer of positivity is if he uses one of these victory declarations as a means to deescalate and end the war. Unfortunately, he is yet to show such wisdom.
Nolan Denaro is a political commentator, writer, libertarian, and host of “The Quest For Clarity” podcast on YouTube and Spotify. He writes opinion pieces on his Substack, and his work has been featured on Antiwar.com.
