By Tom Fowdy
Several weeks ago, the President of the United States unleashed a war against Iran with the goal of bringing down the Mullah regime, believing that leadership decapitation and a massive bombing campaign would make it swiftly collapse.
Roll the clock forwards, the US is now reportedly considering lifting some sanctions on Iranian oil, all while waging this "regime change" war that has resulted in a catastrophe across the Middle East and caused global economic contagion as Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, attacked shipping and bombed key energy infrastructure in the Gulf States.
If there was anything that demonstrated how utterly disastrous this war is turning out to be: then it is this. America's objective strategically has always been to try and cripple Iran's economic development by sanctioning its oil, but now, while committing to bring the regime down by force, Washington discovers that it in fact "needs" this oil on the market because it can't control energy prices, so therefore has to fund the state it wants to destroy.
Based on this, as well as the US being forced to roll back sanctions on Russian oil too, I would conclude quite earnestly that America has already lost this conflict, and the longer it drags on, the worse things will get. Donald Trump, under the thumb of Israel, has unleashed a massive regional wide war based on flawed miscalculations and no contemplation whatsoever of the consequences, in a manner whereby any retreat in his publicly professed goal of terminating the Iranian regime constitutes humiliation.
Because the President is not willing to do that, and Iran is not collapsing or surrendering, this is now morphing into a prolonged quagmire in the same way Putin's invasion of Ukraine has, in the sense that the United States are being forced to limit themselves or give concessions to contain the consequences, of which directly contradict the core war aims. However, in many ways the situation is far worse. As of 2026, the Ukraine war is now contained, but the Iran War is spanning across an entire region and hammering a group of the world's most important energy producing states.
Europe could painfully detach themselves from Russian energy, but here most of the world relies on exports of oil and natural gas from the Middle East, and ironically one of the alternatives is Russia itself. It is not a coincidence that amidst the Iran war, and the energy price surges, Moscow has ended dialogue with the US on ending the conflict in Ukraine. The Kremlin's pockets are being loaded by Trump's chaos and of course his political distraction from everything else. Thus, the Iran war is now undermining all US strategic objectives, as well as shattering the security of US backed deterrence.
However, what becomes most unsettling, is that there is no actual endgame to any of it. First, will Trump shallow his pride, retreat, and accept the political losses that come with it? Anyone who even knows the slightest about him knows this is not happening, because he always must "win." Second, Israel is a loose cannon that no western country, especially the US, has any ability to stand up to or control, and they have effectively no leverage over them. Benjamin Netanyahu over the past few years has cynically and deliberately aggravated perpetual war because he sees it as a way of maintaining power and distracting from scandals. Despite the fact he is indicted for war crimes, America and others ensure he is for all intents and purposes invulnerable, and has been able to bring about unprecedented destruction, mass murder, and even genocide, free of consequences.
Thus, his recent comments, still pushing and vowing for regime change in Iran, made me feel dismay to be honest, because it shows that the war has already got out of control beyond the US itself, and no matter how bad it gets, European allies cannot even bring themselves to condemn Tel Aviv, producing one sided statements targeting Iran for retaliating against Israeli strikes of all things. This shows that Britain, the EU and others are utterly spineless, as if it is just in their DNA to be completely unable to stand up to America or Israel despite the catastrophe what their actions are bringing about. Thus, they are like a rabbit caught in headlights, an energy crisis is building and there is no solution to it.
So, in conclusion, what lies ahead? It's difficult to predict the exact ways wars will turn out, as they are often unpredictable, yet what we can confidently assert already is there is no way the United States comes out of this smelling of roses or gaining strategically. Even if they managed, in an unlikely event, to bring the Iranian regime down, it would be a pyrrhic, long drawn out and ugly victory that will have came at a terrible cost, destroying America's international reputation and its credibility as an ally, empowering other competitors, and likely causing a recession.
I thus say it very clear, this one of the biggest strategic blunders America has ever made in modern history, making Bush and Cheney look sane and calculated, and therefore all things considered America has already lost. I once believed Trump was a bluffer, someone who feigned insanity in a shrewd way to dominate negotiations and situations, but he has finally, ultimately got lost in his own hubris and bit off more than he can chew. The world pays the price for its failure to stand up to him.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | How Trump's Iran disaster 'burst the bubble of American omnipotence'
Opinion | South Korea finally learns the US is not the 'ironclad' ally it claims to be
Opinion | Why the US can never escape the Middle East Quagmire
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