War has a way of exposing the limits of anything short of victory. And while the war isn\u2019t over (and may still last for weeks or even years), things are looking bad after great expenditures of American munitions and readiness: One of the world\u2019s most important maritime trade routes is closed (a contingency the White House did not seriously anticipate<\/a>), energy markets are in turmoil, the Iranian regime remains firmly in charge, and its stockpile of uranium remains in its possession (even if it is buried under debris and soil). Clearly, Iranian forces remain capable of waging warfare<\/a>. And the Trump administration\u2019s negotiators left Islamabad without a deal. Unless victory is defined merely as the degradation of Iranian military capabilities, no honest observer can say America is victorious in this war. And it is difficult to see how the path ahead gets much better for Washington.<\/p>\n The United States has not been able to realize discernible political goals in its war against Iran. It is worth digging into what that means, starting with the word \u201cpolitical,\u201d which is the hinge of it all, and assessing what Washington has actually achieved against the yardstick of its ever-shifting declared aims.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Politics and War<\/p>\n When Americans hear \u201cpolitical,\u201d they think of the thing that has poisoned Thanksgiving dinners for many years: red versus blue, cable news, the chaos of factions, and, more recently, the much-decried \u201cTrump derangement syndrome.\u201d When Carl von Clausewitz used the term (\u201cpolitik\u201d) in his famed text, On War<\/a>, he meant something more serious: the purposive will of the state. In this sense, politics are the ongoing intercourse between states, conducted through diplomacy, commerce, and force, all in the service of some desired end in the world. This, of course, implicates and involves domestic politics, but not as the ultimate purpose.<\/p>\n For Clausewitz, war was \u201cnot merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.\u201d The crucial word there is \u201cinstrument.\u201d A hammer is an instrument. It has a purpose external to itself. You don\u2019t swing a hammer to experience the swinging \u2014 you swing it to drive a nail into a certain board to help hold a structure together. War, under all circumstances, is to be regarded \u201cnot as an independent thing, but as a political instrument.\u201d The moment it becomes its own purpose, it has escaped its purpose entirely, and you are no longer conducting strategy. You are just hitting things. As Colin Gray wisely noted<\/a>, there is more to war than warfare and \u201cto approach war as if it is synonymous with warfare all but guarantees political failure.\u201d<\/p>\n The Seasons of Our Reasons<\/p>\n When the U.S. military launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, the administration had done remarkably little legwork in building a case for war or laying out its objectives. What followed was not a single coherent political aim but a rotating display of them, swapped out roughly every few days like specials on a diner chalkboard. On Truth Social, early in the morning of Feb. 28, President Donald Trump declared that the objective was \u201cto defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime<\/a>.\u201d Later, he said, \u201cAll I want is freedom for the people<\/a>.\u201d That same day, the president\u2019s video statement said the purpose of the strikes was effectively regime change<\/a>. If you\u2019re keeping track, that\u2019s three different political objects before breakfast.<\/p>\n On March 2, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth narrowed the aims to four concrete military objectives<\/a>: Destroy Iranian ballistic missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and ensure they will never have nuclear weapons. But since America\u2019s problems with Iran are inherently political, military objectives cannot be proper war aims. And proper war aims are what\u2019s missing: a desired end state that can be served by a ledger of destruction but must be more than the ledger itself.<\/p>\n Hours after that, Trump appeared at a Medal of Honor ceremony<\/a> and debuted an amended list, merging two goals into one and adding a new objective about Iranian proxy networks. Hegseth charged that Tehran was building missiles and drones to create a \u201cconventional shield\u201d for its nuclear ambitions, while the same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged Iran was producing 100 ballistic missiles a month which \u201cthey can hide behind<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n On March 6, one week in, Trump posted that there would be \u201cno deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER<\/a>.\u201d Later that day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to hedge, stating:<\/p>\n What President Trump means when he says<\/a> \u2018unconditional surrender\u2019 is when he, as commander in chief of the U.S. military and the leader of the free world \u2014\u00a0determines that Iran can no longer pose a threat to the United States.<\/p>\n The next day, Trump said that surrender had already happened because Iran\u2019s president had apologized to neighboring countries for the missile strikes on Gulf states. \u201cThat\u2019s a surrender right there<\/a>,\u201d Trump said. For those keeping score at home, that\u2019s unconditional surrender demanded on Friday, redefined the same day, then achieved by apology to other countries on Saturday.<\/p>\n By March 13, Trump was saying it didn\u2019t actually matter whether Iran said it surrendered<\/a>, so long as the United States had a position of dominance. On March 20, the U.S. government lifted some oil sanctions on Iran to stabilize energy prices<\/a>, which may have been the right decision, but it also enriched the Iranian regime by about $14 billion (almost 4 percent of that country\u2019s GDP at once).<\/p>\n By late March, Trump was floating the seizure of Kharg Island<\/a> \u2014 which handles 90 percent of Iran\u2019s crude exports \u2014 and threatening to obliterate Iranian oil wells if no deal was reached. Meanwhile, Rubio was quietly walking back the missile objectives: Where in early March the goal was to \u201cdestroy\u201d Iran\u2019s missile program entirely, by March 30, he was describing the aim as a \u201ca significant reduction in the number of missile launchers that they have.\u201d Alongside that aim, Rubio identified the others as:<\/a><\/p>\n the destruction of their air force, which has been achieved; the destruction of their navy, which has largely been achieved \u2026 and we are going to destroy the factories that make those missiles and those drones that they are using to attack their neighbors and the United States and our presence in the region.<\/p>\n Also in late March, the president began claiming that the United States had already changed the regime in Iran, because so many of their original leaders were killed by U.S. and Israeli strikes. He said:<\/p>\n We\u2019ve had regime change<\/a> if you look already because the [first] regime was decimated \u2026 the next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime we\u2019re dealing with different people \u2026 It\u2019s a whole different group of people. So, I would consider that regime change.<\/p>\n I can understand why this is semantically appealing to the president, but it is plainly ridiculous. What we are seeing now is not regime change, but regime hardening<\/a>.<\/p>\n On April Fools\u2019 Day<\/a> (and I suspect historians of the future will not let that timing go unremarked), Trump delivered an Oval Office address proclaiming: \u201cWe\u2019ve beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically and in every other way \u2026 the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat.\u201d He then announced the war needed to continue for another two to three weeks. He threatened to \u201chit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously\u201d if no deal was reached. So, in the same speech, the president declared total victory and admitted it had not yet been achieved.<\/p>\n On April 8, the White House announced a two-week ceasefire and quietly revised the objectives<\/a>, claiming that \u201cfrom day one\u201d the aims were only to destroy Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles and drones, its navy, and its defense industrial base. Regime change, unconditional surrender, freedom of the Iranian people, proxies, Kharg Island \u2026 nowhere to be found. Maybe they will make a return.<\/p>\n On April 9, Adm. Bradley Cooper of U.S. Central Command described his mission<\/a> as \u201cdismantl[ing] the Iranian regime\u2019s ability to project power beyond its own borders.\u201d He went on to say that U.S. forces had \u201cclearly accomplished this task,\u201d saying that Iran had \u201csuffered a generational military defeat.\u201d His next sentence, however, defined projecting power downward by saying that Operation Epic Fury had only destroyed Iran\u2019s ability to \u201cconduct large-scale military operations for years to come\u201d [emphasis mine].<\/p>\n Perhaps he is right, but I hope the reader will not blame me for being skeptical.<\/p>\n A Warning Unheard<\/p>\n Clausewitz\u2019s most profound warning was not that war is hard, or that enemies get a vote, or that fog and friction confound the best-laid plans \u2014 though he believed all of those things. His deepest warning was about what happens when the political object is unclear or absent from the start. A successful outcome on the battlefield is not the purpose of the war itself. Operations on the battlefield, however brilliantly performed, are without practical value if they do not contribute to achieving a worthy political objective. The enemy\u2019s military can be the center of gravity<\/a>, but war exacts a toll so severe that only the clearest and most necessary purposes can justify it. If, despite the figures of destruction trumpeted by Gen. Dan Caine, Iran is still in the fight and still able to exact major military and economic costs, then it is fair to ask what purpose this war truly serves.<\/p>\n The consequences are not abstract. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei\u2019s son, Mojtaba \u2014 described by analysts as a more hardline version of his father<\/a> \u2014 has assumed the top post. Near weapons-grade uranium remains buried deep in Iranian territory<\/a>. And, unfortunately, if there is any strategic sense left in the Iranian regime, it now understands that having a nuclear weapon is no longer an optional hedge for its evil system\u2019s survival and power. It is a strategic necessity. Iran has effectively established itself as gatekeeper of the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> \u2014 a fundamentally different status quo than existed before the conflict, giving Tehran a durable form of economic leverage it did not previously possess.<\/p>\n Clausewitz would have recognized all of this immediately. The war has not failed because the bombs and missiles missed. The war failed because the men who ordered the bombing could not answer, before they ordered it or at any point thereafter, the one question that makes war something other than organized violence: What are we trying to get the enemy to do and how does this make them do it? In other words, what is our theory of victory<\/a> \u2014 the connection between our aims and actions? It is, of course, true that aims may change throughout the course of a given conflict, but when you cannot answer that question consistently in the opening days, you have not lost control of the war. You never had it.<\/p>\n This seems to indicate the military campaign developed by Central Command and the Pentagon could not have possibly been scoped to an achievable end. The military will certainly act in the absence of strategy \u2014 we have seen that many times \u2014 but tactical brilliance cannot compensate for that. And without war aims and strategy, victory against Iran will be impossible.<\/p>\n This is not a new problem for America nor for Central Command specifically. The campaign plan in Afghanistan during the height of counter-insurgency operations (2009 to 2012) did nothing to meaningfully address the Taliban\u2019s safe havens in Afghanistan nor the predation and corruption of the Afghan government. All the clearing, holding, and building in the world could never overcome that operational-strategic disconnect<\/a>. And so, America lost \u2014 not because one president struck a deal with the Taliban and the next withdrew, but because there was no coherent theory of victory.<\/p>\n Similarly, even if the Iranian regime suffers enormously, that does not make it a victory for the United States. I don\u2019t think the American people will be satisfied by an Israeli-style approach to \u201cmowing the grass<\/a>\u201d every few years in Iran. And, as many have pointed out (including this administration in its own National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy), war in the Middle East is a massive distraction from more pressing challenges for America elsewhere in the world. So, all we have to console ourselves with is a tally of leaders, officials, equipment, and production facilities killed and destroyed, which do not a victory make.<\/p>\n The Iranian state still retains the ability to wage war, control trade in the region, and repress its own population. The Trump administration did not have a strategy to deal with any of that effectively, it seems, assuming the regime would collapse like a house of cards in the early days. That assumption proved fatal to America\u2019s chances to win this war, whether the president cares to admit it or not<\/a>. The American naval blockade of Iranian ports is unlikely to change matters<\/a>, nor would the limited strikes reportedly being considered<\/a> by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Where does this leave the war? What happens next? I am not a seer, but I will offer a few thoughts:<\/p>\n The ceasefire seems likely to fall apart, but its collapse would merely be a symptom of the underlying disease. After Vice President J.D. Vance left Islamabad empty-handed<\/a>, the administration faces the predictable consequence of its own conceptual vacuum: You cannot negotiate an end to a war when you cannot define what that end looks like.<\/p>\n Still, negotiations may continue in some form. Meanwhile, some in the Trump administration will surely be tempted to double down on the original error and escalate, perhaps through the introduction of ground forces on Iranian islands or coastal areas. Escalation in the pursuit of sunk costs in the Middle East has become something of an American military tradition. It is one this administration\u2019s leaders \u2014 including the secretary of defense, the vice president, and the president himself \u2014 claim to have learned from and one they invoked on their way to power<\/a>.<\/p>\n The key thing to understand, however, is this: The United States is not a victor imposing terms and garnering spoils. Until the White House realizes that a ledger of destroyed targets is not a substitute for a better and enduring political reality, we aren\u2019t just walking the path to defeat \u2014 we are blindly sprinting down it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Ryan Evans is the founder of War on the Rocks.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Untitled-design.png\")
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