The Good Soldier
When asked by reporters at the White House on Thursday whether the intense and sustained air campaign by American forces would be over by the midterm elections, Vice President JD Vance replied: “I wouldn’t call it a war.” What Vance didn’t say is that he has long held doubts about the war, so much so that he took the unusual—and commendable—step last spring of asking US commanders in the Middle East and elsewhere for their individual assessments of every aspect of the war, from Iran’s resistance to US weapons stockpiles. The New York Times has interviewed people who are aware of Vance’s interviews, and from them they conclude: “Mr. Vance came away from some of his conversations with deep concerns about the overall strategy and the prospects for success, according to people who spoke to him. The assessments made clear the extraordinary amount of pain the Iranian government was prepared to endure in its fight for survival, and the limited supply of U.S. defensive weapons available to block Iran’s retaliatory strikes, or to deal with threats elsewhere” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/us/politics/vance-iran-war-trump-munitions.html)
As happened during the Vietnam War, private assessments collide with public statements. Confidence outwardly, doubts privately. Except for Donald Trump. He and other senior officials, including Rubio and Hegseth, are said to have been aware of Vance’s interviews. They are all quick to say that the information Vance gathered fed into the decision process on Iran, “at times to Mr. Trump’s considerable irritation,” the Times journalists report. But like a good soldier, Vance and the generals went along with Trump’s disastrous decision.
Oblivious to the Evidence
Why Trump was so determined to destroy Iran despite conflicting advice is the same kind of question that was asked about Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. In Trump’s case, it is fair to say for now that he was emboldened by the Venezuela venture, by the joint attack with Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and by his overweening optimism about the use of force against a weaker country.
So here we are seven months since the war started, with Trump continuing with bombing and economic warfare while claiming, roughly 66 times according to the Daily Beast, that the US has “won” the war. (The Daily Beast). His latest prediction, on his social media, is that once the war is won, “Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping (but more!) . . . ” “Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon. It will all happen quickly, and Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon.” How that is going to happen when only a fraction of the oil tankers that once transited the Strait of Hormuz are able to do so; when Saudi oil is barely getting past Houthi attacks in the Red Sea; and when it will be a long time before Venezuelan oil makes it to the pump?
Trump and his circle may nevertheless believe, like treasury secretary Scott Bessent, that the US can “sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime.” Yet even as US bombing has achieved much of that objective, it hasn’t been enough to cause regime collapse. Esfandyar Batmanghelid, writing for Foreign Affairs last week, points to all the indicators of an Iranian economy in great distress, such as a 5.4 contraction of the GDP and an 88 percent rise in inflation this year (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/why-america-cant-strangle-iran?). But, he explains: “The state of the economy is not yet impinging on Iran’s ability to wage war. Stockpiles of various goods remain deep, thanks to years of sanctions experience. And the Iranian state, with its powerful repressive tools, has figured out how to offload much of the economic pain onto ordinary Iranians while making sure its own needs are met. Trump’s approach, in other words, can certainly immiserate most of the country’s people. But it cannot successfully strangle the Islamic Republic itself.”
No End in Sight
What’s the end game? If Trump & Co. truly believe the US is winning—Pete Hegseth, in a speech on 9/11, claimed that Iran’s defenses “are gone”—that suggests a war that can only result in Iran’s surrender. But far from surrendering, Iran is attacking US bases in Kuwait and the UAE, and now a US warship for the first time. Iran’s situation may be desperate, but desperation seems to be driving retaliation.
If, on the other hand, Trump & Co. are dissembling, and actually believe they are trapped by their war making, fighting could go on indefinitely as Trump not only refuses to admit defeat but just might return to intense bombing after the elections. Like some presidents before him, but all the more so with Trump, doing otherwise would be to show “weakness.”
Whichever direction he takes, Trump is defying the usual logic of elections: Don’t be in a war with elections just ahead, as happened with LBJ. Trump, however, seems unfazed by the overwhelming public disapproval of his war. Nor is he willing to take up Iran’s offer to return to the MOU. Instead, he’s making false promises of gas at $2 a gallon and hoping to buy votes with a $5,000 check to every American, which is probably illegal. He’s playing, in short, with a losing hand.
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 