The Iran War, What Was It Good For?

Donald Trump had a vision about how the war in Iran would end.

Iran would publicly admit that “their Navy is gone and resting at the bottom of the sea†and that “their Air Force is no longer with us.†Their “entire Military†would walk out of Tehran, “weapons dropped and hands held high, each shouting ‘I surrender, I surrender' while wildly waving the representative White Flag.†And their “remaining Leadership†would sign “all necessary ‘Documents of Surrender,' and admit their defeat to the great power and force of the magnificent U.S.A.â€

Sounds nice, huh? Trump first posted this imagined scenario on Truth Social on May 18, and he seemed to be quite enamored of it: the president rarely recycles his social media posts verbatim, but he did so here, blasting out this exact same message on May 26 and then again on June 1. The post was purposefully hyperbolic: it was written to make the point that even if the above chain of events took place, “The Failing New York Times, The China Street Journal (WSJ!), Corrupt and now Irrelevant CNN, and all other members of the Fake News Media†would still announce that “Iran had a Masterful and Brilliant Victory over The United States of America,†such is the extent of their bias against him.

But Trump clearly put some thought into it: the description was elaborate enough, and he posted it enough times, that it did seem to be lurking in the back of his head as a hoped-for endgame to the war.

It was, unfortunately, a complete fantasy.

It appears — emphasis on “appears†— that the war is now coming to a close, at least according to the president. “We ended the war with Iran today,†Trump said at a telerally for a Georgia gubernatorial candidate last night, after announcing on Truth Social that a peace deal was about to be finalized.

However, no one is shouting “I surrender, I surrender†or waving a white flag. “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!†Trump wrote on social media in March. Those were headier times. Three months later, Trump is signing a deal with Iran, and it is not, in fact, unconditional. Instead, the war is ending as it was always going to, with a negotiated settlement where both sides are being forced to make concessions.

In fact, despite Trump's declarations of victory, it isn't even clear what exactly will change if the still-unreleased deal is signed this weekend in Europe, as Trump says it will be. Consider:

• Before the war began on February 28, the U.S. and Iran were not attacking each other, the Strait of Hormuz was open, and Iran had not made any firm commitments about its nuclear program.

• Then, between February 28 and April 8, the U.S. and Iran were attacking each other, the Strait of Hormuz was closed, and Iran had not made any firm commitments about its nuclear program.

• Since April 8, the U.S. and Iran have mostly not been attacking each other, the Strait of Hormuz has mostly been closed, and Iran has not made any firm commitments about its nuclear program.

• And now after this deal (if it takes effect), the U.S. and Iran will once again not be attacking each other, the Strait of Hormuz will be open, and Iran will still not have made any firm commitments about its nuclear program: Tehran will merely have agreed to a 60-day extension of the ceasefire during which the actual nuclear talks can be held.

Which places us, in the broadest sense, roughly where we were already, except for the Strait of Hormuz being open — which itself simply places us roughly where we were before the war. (Also recall that the April ceasefire deal was supposed to reopen the strait as well, so a promise to reopen the strait only brings us back to where we were in April. That time, Trump did not restart attacks even when it became clear that the strait was staying closed, nor did he return to a full war footing on the multiple occasions that the ceasefire was violated in other ways.)

Of course, this is simplifying matters somewhat. The U.S. and Iran have been at war, in some form, for more than three months, even if for much of that time, the conflict has existed in a sort of limbo state where we weren't completely at war but also not completely at peace, which may just continue after this deal as well. Still, surely some things must have changed in all that time?

Below, we'll take a close look at what the Iran war has and hasn't accomplished, by judging it against the yardstick Trump himself set out at the conflict's start. Then, we'll cast forward a bit: if nuclear negotiations really are about to start in earnest, how should we judge an ultimate U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal (if one ever materializes)?

We'll look at the 2015 Obama-era nuclear deal that Trump has scorned, and consider what agreement Trump could ink that would count as considerable progress beyond the Obama deal, and what would merely turn the clock back (at best) to the pre-Trump status quo that he derided.

Obviously, the most significant wartime change to Iranian society has been that the country's supreme leader of 37 years, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a U.S.-Israeli attack. Still, if one of the objectives of Trump's war was regime change — and it has never been fully clear whether it was — then that goal has not been accomplished.

The ranks of Iran's leadership have undoubtedly been hollowed out by the war — around 50 of the country's top officials have been killed — but the government in Iran today consists of the same regime that was in charge before the war, starting with Khamenei's own (severely wounded) son Mojtaba as the new ayatollah. The U.S. and Israel seem to have overestimated the likelihood of the war leading to a popular uprising within Iran (“When we are finished, take over your government,†Trump told the Iranian people at the outset of the war. “It will be yours to takeâ€). Reportedly, the U.S. and Israel were also nursing a plan for former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take over the country as part of the war effort. That didn't happen either.

The war has been devastating to the Iranian economy, which has lost at least one (maybe two) million jobs since the conflict began. If you think our 4.2% annual inflation rate in the U.S. is bad, consider that inflation is at 77.2% (!) in Iran. Again, this is a case of the war succeeding in battering Iran into terrible shape, but still in a way that seems to have undershot Trump's hopes: as terrible as the Iranian economy is, the regime has stubbornly refused to surrender, even under the pressure of a U.S.-led blockade.

Of course, this is largely because the war has allowed Iran to unlock a key piece of leverage that has also harmed the U.S. (and world) economy: closing down the Strait of Hormuz. (This is something Trump was warned about before the war, but does not appear to have planned for.) Our economy is still performing leagues better than Iran's, of course, though the war has pushed U.S. inflation to its highest level in three years, creating an urgent political problem for the president.

What has he gotten in exchange? Let's consider the five objectives Trump laid out in a Truth Social post towards the beginning of the war:

1) “Completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability, Launchers, and everything else pertaining to themâ€: According to the New York Times, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran still retains about 70% of its missile stockpile, 70% of its mobile launchers, 90% of its underground missile storage and launch facilities, and access to 30 out of 33 of its missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz.

2) “Destroying Iran's Defense Industrial Baseâ€: According to an intelligence assessment reported by CNN, significant damage was done to Iran's military industrial base — but it doesn't appear that the damage was long-term. The intelligence agencies have reportedly found that “Iran's military is reconstituting much faster than initially estimated,†with the country already restarting its drone production during the existing ceasefire, while also rebuilding the missile launchers and military production sites that were destroyed during the fighting. The agencies said that Iran could fully reconstitute its drone attack capability in as soon as six months.

3) “Eliminating their Navy and Air Force, including Anti Aircraft Weaponryâ€: This is the score on which the U.S. appears to have been the most successful. According to estimates by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. has destroyed 90% of Iran's regular naval fleet and about 80% of the country's air defense systems.

4) “Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Alliesâ€: Iran has repeatedly attacked Israel and the U.S.' Gulf allies throughout the war. In terms of Tehran's ability to threaten America's allies in the Middle East going forward, there is no indication that Iran has agreed to stop supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and other regional terrorist groups as part of the “memorandum of understanding†(MOU) that Trump says is soon to be signed, although the text of the tentative agreement has not yet been publicized.

5) “Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capabilityâ€: And finally, Trump's most important goal. According to Axios, as part of the forthcoming MOU Iran will commit to never acquire a nuclear weapon — which may sound like a significant concession, until you recall that Iran has long insisted it is not trying to have a nuclear weapon. Iran also affirmed under the 2015 nuclear deal that it would not “ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons,†so such a commitment is merely a reheated version of the same promise Obama got, regardless of how much worth you put into it at either point.

From there, if the MOU does take effect (still an “if†as of this writing), that's when the U.S. and Iran will start diving into the real nitty-gritty of nuclear negotiations, to see what concessions Tehran will agree to in order to make good on that commitment. That's when it starts becoming relevant to compare Trump to the Obama-era baseline that he so derided.

Below, we'll look at what would be a success in the next phase of the U.S.-Tehran negotiations — and take a step back to assess the bigger picture of Trump's current political position.