There is no better example of the ill consequences of actions based on ignorance and motivated by arrogance than Trump’s self-initiated attack on Iran launched on 28 February. Anyone who knows anything about foreign affairs in the Middle East has long known that Iran has had the option to close the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic response to an American or Israeli attack. Military planners expected Iran would close the Strait in the event of hostilities between it and America, and so advised the President. He rejected their advice out of blind pride.
Yet, despite the hostile relationship between Iran and America for nearly half a century, Iran had not exercised the option to close the Strait until this war. The question is why; the answer is that exercising that option, with its severe worldwide consequences, would, without justification, have incurred the wrath of many nations. Trump’s attack provided that justification, and many countries in the region, though not allied with Iran, understand and in part forgive its response. They may chafe under its new regime of controlled shipments and payments of transit fees, but they are unlikely to do more than try to alleviate its terms by negotiation and political pressure.
So the question is why Iran did not close the Strait when America and Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. The answer depends on a crucial distinction between hostility and hostilities. The June 2025 American/Israeli attacks had no political objective—that is, regime change. Instead, they had only a military objective, the destruction of those facilities, with tacit support from countries in the region which fear Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons. Trump’s February 2026 attack on Iran was different because it also had the political objective of regime change. That objective ensured that Iran would react, to the surprise of no one but Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Both were either ignorant of this likelihood or indifferent to it in the hubristic belief in America’s military superiority.
After over five months of on-again, off-again attacks and talks, Trump and Hegseth have lost the war. They have achieved none of its alleged objectives, primarily, regime change and termination of Iran’s nuclear-weapon program. Indeed, they lost the war before the attack was launched mainly because they had only their arrogant, racist belief that an economically and politically suffering third-world Muslim country would quickly submit to a sudden onslaught of expensive, high-tech weaponry of the worlds’ most powerful military. Such a belief is the more remarkable because Trump and Hegseth know that America, despite its overwhelming military might, lost its war in Vietnam, a country far more vulnerable because less populous, educated, and developed than Iran.
With traditional American hubris, Trump and Hegseth, with their boyish fascination with video-game-like razzle-dazzle weaponry, thought the attack would produce victory in a matter of weeks. Anticipating their amusement, Hegseth expended vast quantities of costly, sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles, though a few thousands-of-dollars bombs could have done as much targeted damage as one multi-million-dollar missile. Using more conventional munitions would mean delivering them by tactical fighter-bombers and strategic bombers, and risking pilots’ lives, but it is unlikely that either considered using missiles to save lives. If American forces had incapacitated Iran’s air defenses—Hegseth’s claim cannot be readily believed—, then the use of conventional weapons at a negligible increase in casualties would have avoided the far greater problems created by depleting theater arsenals of major military assets, with serious implications for strategic requirements elsewhere in the world, particularly the Far East, especially Taiwan.
Trump and Hegseth have lost the war because they foresaw no ill consequences, had no support or strategy, and squandered valuable munitions—and could not have prevailed against a determined opponent resolute in its resistance to an existential threat. Having lost, America is now a weaker, more vulnerable country. For many months or some years, the military will be weakened by shortages of major weapon systems. Its power, as exercised by its armed forces, has been exposed as having diminished effectiveness in achieving political objectives. More importantly, America’s prestige has been tarnished and its authority undermined by ignorant, arrogant, and erratic decision making. The world has witnessed a demonstration of collective incompetence at the highest levels of America’s government. At this point, America is anything but great again—in the words of Richard Nixon, it is “a helpless, pitiful giant—, and Trump, who campaigned to “make America great again” has done as much to erode its reputation and dissipate its moral, economic, political, and military strength as our adversaries could wish.
Trump is in a quandary from which he cannot escape. His military attacks have failed, and more attacks cannot succeed. He lacks diplomatic skills and is deemed untrustworthy by foreign diplomats; his substitute negotiators are equally unskilled and untrustworthy. His ego, brittle but defensive, and his personality, immature and irresponsible, cannot admit error or defeat. His ego will not let him admit that he has lost the war and much American influence in foreign affairs. His personality will lead him to insist that others, mainly Obama and Biden, are to blame. For anyone but Trump, the aftermath—though there looks to be no aftermath in the short term—would provide a steady diet of crow and humble pie. All in all, his Iran escapade has shown Trump to be a loser to everyone but himself. Because he cannot admit his mistakes and losses, he cannot learn from the one and cut the others. Which means a continuation of the armed impasse and its consequences, and more of Trump’s braggadocio, bungling, and boondoggle.
Until the Democrats achieve regime change here, America cannot expect any improvement in our relations with countries abroad. Indeed, Trump is liable to initiate other adventures, like occupying Greenland and Cuba. In Greenland, he will use the locals’ resistance as a pretext to protect a Texas oil venture illegally landing drilling gear in its northeast region and thereby begin the occupation. This case of might making right by Trump’s standards will serve Trump and his cronies, but it will do nothing to enhance America’s standing in the world. What its effect on NATO will be remains an open question likely with an uncomfortable answer.
It is unlikely that Trump can be stopped unless Democrats acquire a majority at least in the House. At the very least, it must restrict or refuse funding for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. In the event of violations of the law and inaction by the Department of Justice, it must restrict or refuse funding it, too. I am not hopeful, however. Democrats are not much more courageous than Republicans. Whereas Republicans act because of their cult-like subservience to Trump, Democrats dither because of their political diversity and their aversion to vigorous though righteous action.
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