When he declared war on Iran in violation of international law and the US Constitution, President Donald Trump announced several objectives. He claims to have won the war, but Iran is emerging as the long-term victor.

Let’s count the ways.

No one doubted the capacity of the US armed forces to decimate Iran’s far inferior military force. But to what end?

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced Trump that launching the attack would prompt a popular uprising that would lead to the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy. Listening to Netanyahu’s assertion, CIA Director John Ratcliffe called it “farcical.” Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio translated that word into language Trump would understand, “In other words, it’s bullshit.”

Trump’s bluster isn’t working with Iranian leaders. His threats to commit war crimes dominate news cycles, but they merely reveal to Iran Trump’s desperation to extricate himself from the mess he created.

Trump chose to believe Netanyahu. Announcing the US-Israeli assault, Trump told Iranians that this was their opportunity to reclaim their country. To win the war on Trump’s terms, the Iranian theocracy needed only to survive.

The attack killed the Supreme Leader of Iran and top members of the government. But immediately, the serpent grew another head—the Supreme Leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who had lost his wife and teenage son in the bombing. The new leader is known for deep, long-standing ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) security establishment. His appointment signaled a transition to a more heavily militarized, hard-line, and anti-Western regime.

Trump calls this “regime change.” By his definition, Admiral Karl Dönitz succeeding Adolf Hitler as head of the German state near the end of World War II constituted regime change too.

The Iran theocracy survived in an even more militant form.

Score: Iran 1, Trump 0

Trump boasted that the war would restrain Iran’s ability to project power:

“We are systematically dismantling the regime’s ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders,” he said.

Trump then described the destruction of Iran’s navy, air force, missile facilities, and defense industrial base. Those were tactical successes, but the war itself has been a strategic failure.

Iran’s response included attacks on neighboring countries. Even more troubling, it discovered and deployed a powerful new weapon: blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Notwithstanding its decimated navy, Iran now has a choke hold on the global economy.

Netanyahu had assured Trump that the regime would be so weakened from the US-Israeli assault that it would be unable to block the waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flowed. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the strait and the risks of Iran blocking it. But Trump dismissed that possibility on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before that could happen.

With the price of oil skyrocketing, Trump has created a new problem for the........

© Common Dreams