If you listen to some people these days, Washington should start planning victory parades. "We won, Iran lost, period," says CNN's Scott Jennings. Hugh Hewitt concurs, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page agrees. The tide is turning, and they all have a point. The American military is getting oil from America's Gulf allies flowing through the Strait of Hormuz while choking off Iran's exports. This is a remarkable display of military ingenuity, but it does not make the war a success. Remember how we got here? In June 2025, the US and Israel massively bombed Iran's nuclear facilities, and Donald Trump declared its nuclear program obliterated.
Eight months later, in February, they went to war again with far bigger ambitions. They attacked Iran's leadership, killing its Supreme Leader and many senior officials. Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government. The objective was clear: regime change. But the Islamic Republic survived, closed ranks around hardline generals, installed a new supreme leader, and unleashed the weapon it had long threatened to use, closing the Strait of Hormuz through which roughly half of the world's oil passes. After more than seven months of war, the United States is now engaged in a vast campaign to force Iran to stop blocking a waterway that was open before the war began. Washington has mounted this vast operation to restore the status quo and is calling its progress victory.
Consider the costs just to get back to where we were. According to the Pentagon, the tab has reached $45 billion, and the CBO estimates that even a low-intensity conflict will cost another $2 billion monthly. At least 19 American soldiers have died. The US has likely used between half and two-thirds of its inventory of certain sophisticated missile defense interceptors. Replacing them could take more than five years, and these are weapons America would need against China. By the end of June, at least six American warships had been diverted from the Pacific to the Middle East. Since the war began, Brent crude oil prices have averaged around $100 a barrel, roughly 40% higher than before the war.
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimated that the war's cost to the average American household as of July was about $1,000 in higher prices and interest payments. Americans have paid about $130 billion extra for gasoline and diesel alone. Higher diesel prices have jacked up the cost of trucking, farming, and food. Families heating their homes with oil could face bills 50% higher this winter. The damage abroad is staggering. Gulf states have seen their trust in Washington shattered. In addition, they face soaring shipping costs and collapsing tourism. Dubai's hotel occupancy plunged from nearly 85% in February to 23% in March. Governments there must have spent billions repairing infrastructure and building alternative routes around Hormuz. Energy-importing countries, which means most of the world, have struggled paying the bills.
During the Vietnam War, the US would regularly detail the massive damage it had done to the enemy, from weapons destroyed to body counts of enemy soldiers dead. But the test of success is whether that military force makes the adversary cry uncle. So far, Iran has not surrendered, and there are reasons to think that more bombing will not change that reality. The fundamental problem with Donald Trump's approach is that he cannot decide whether he wants to change Iran's policies or its government. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent illustrated the contradiction in September when he said the message to other countries was, "This is the end of the regime." Yet in the same interview, he insisted the goal was not necessarily to collapse the government, but just to pressure it into negotiations.
Addressing the UN last month, Trump wondered whether he should make a deal allowing Iran to rebuild into a greater country or annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, quote unquote. Meanwhile, his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, were negotiating with Iranian officials. Washington was threatening to destroy the government while asking it to negotiate seriously. If Iran's leaders believe Washington intends to destroy them regardless of what they do, why would they make concessions? Their incentive would be to resist, inflict costs, and outlast America. In Foreign Affairs, Steven Biddle and his co-authors argue that wars ultimately always end through political bargains. Military force can improve the terms of those bargains, but cannot substitute for them.
America has repeatedly forgotten this lesson, from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, demonstrating extraordinary skill at destroying armies, but much less at translating battlefield achievements into lasting political outcomes. The Trump administration must decide what it wants. If the goal is policy change — reopening Hormuz, constraining Iran's nuclear program, and curbing its regional aggression — it must define achievable terms and pressure Iran to accept them. If the goal is regime change, it must plan for a bloody struggle, probably with more regional spillover. Until Washington resolves this contradiction, we will remain stuck in our latest Middle Eastern quagmire.
In a sense, how did Lebanon go from being the Paris of the Middle East to where it is now, particularly in the last 20 or 30 years? Because there was the Shia, Sunni, Christian civil war of the 70s and 80s. But this is something different. And you said to me something just now which was striking and haunting. You said southern Lebanon used to be occupied. It is now being obliterated. Explain what you mean.
