Donald Trump promised America he would end forever wars, not start new ones. Yet nearly five months into a conflict with Iran that he predicted would end in weeks, the ceasefire he negotiated has collapsed, tit-for-tat strikes are escalating across the Middle East, and the path toward another open-ended military entanglement has never looked clearer.
The irony is sharp. Trump built his political brand partly on opposition to the grinding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On election night in November 2024, he told supporters: "I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars." By early March of this year, a week into his Iran operation, he was demanding "unconditional surrender" from Tehran's government, vowing to destroy much of its military, and calling for regime overthrow.
What followed was classic American overreach. Trump declared victory would come quickly. His team dismissed warnings about entanglement as campaign promise violations. Reality intervened.
A June ceasefire agreement, billed as a breakthrough, included reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and liquid gas supplies normally flow. Trump announced it with characteristic flair on social media: "Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!" The deal was really a 60-day extension of an earlier ceasefire, and it punted the hardest issues including Iran's nuclear program to future talks. But Trump had already imposed a naval blockade on Iranian shipping, so the strait never truly reopened.
Within weeks, the agreement crumbled. Each side interpreted it differently, and neither was willing to move first on the key disputes. What came next was a rapid descent back into warfare.
Iran targeted oil tankers moving through the southern corridor of the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon responded with daily airstrikes on what it described as Iranian command centers, missile sites, drone facilities, and air defense systems. The bombing campaign expanded to bridges across southern Iran. Trump threatened to destroy Iran's power plants and other civilian infrastructure, moves that analysts say could constitute war crimes.
Tehran retaliated with missile and drone strikes against US military bases throughout the Middle East. On Friday, Iranian ballistic missiles hit an airbase in Jordan, killing two American service members with a third missing. A fourth was killed on Saturday in northern Iraq. Since the war began, 17 US service members have been killed and roughly 430 wounded.
Trump had previously vowed that American deaths would trigger massive retaliation. He has now boxed himself into an escalation cycle with no exit strategy. He has no political framework to convert military advantage into a durable agreement with Tehran, and his approach has wavered for months between seeking a grand deal and threatening to restart full-scale warfare. Much of the conflict's direction has appeared to hinge on Trump's shifting moods rather than coherent policy.
Iran's regime, meanwhile, has gained ground in unexpected ways. After joint US-Israeli airstrikes in late February killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and more than 30 senior officials, the regime installed Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, as the new leader, backed by hardline generals from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Far from breaking Iran's will, the strikes appear to have strengthened the hardliners' hand.
More troubling for Washington, Iran has discovered leverage that extends far beyond its arsenal. Control of the Strait of Hormuz gives Tehran the ability to hold the global economy hostage. A sustained blockade would disrupt not just oil shipments but also critical agricultural products like fertilizer. Iran can also pressure the Houthi militia, which controls parts of Yemen and already disrupted Red Sea shipping after Israel's Gaza invasion in 2023. The Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi ports this week, adding pressure to energy prices. Should Trump escalate further, Iran could widen attacks on oil and gas infrastructure across the Gulf, hitting Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
Each scenario risks spiking energy prices and triggering global recession. Trump shows no sign of stepping back from the brink. Ground troops could yet be deployed. The conflict could spread across the region.
The forever war Trump denounced has become the forever war Trump created.
Author James Rodriguez: "Trump walked into the exact trap he spent his first term denouncing, and his refusal to negotiate seriously now means Americans will pay the price in lives and treasure."
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