At the outset of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, President Donald Trump declared that military operations would continue until all American objectives had been achieved, and initially expected the campaign to last four to six weeks. Yet after 39 days of continuous bombardment to Iran, Trump abruptly suspended the air campaign and declared a ceasefire. That pause initiated a diplomatic process that, more than two months later, produced the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The MOU served as a roadmap for ending the war, reopening the Strait, and addressing the principal demands of both sides. 

Approximately three weeks later, the United States resumed striking Iran following attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The incidents occurred amid a dispute over a shipping corridor opened by Oman closer to its coast, which Iran opposed.

Trump is again threatening to intensify the campaign, saying that the United States will strike Iran “very hard” until it can no longer withstand the pressure. This recurring cycle—escalation, declarations of victory, pauses for negotiations, renewed bombing, and threats of still greater force—raises a fundamental question: Does the Trump administration have a coherent strategy to end the war? 

So far, the United States appears to have relied on a trial-and-error strategy. It entered the war without clearly defined and attainable political objectives, failed to account for how Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz would obstruct an American exit, and repeatedly returned to military escalation in the belief that greater coercive pressure would produce different results. It is time for the Trump administration to acknowledge that the war on Iran has failed to achieve its principal stated objectives and to implement the MOU as a path toward ending the conflict.

The War’s Undefined Goals

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, launched on February 28, 2026, was publicly justified as an operation to eliminate the military threats posed by the Iranian government. From its opening hours, however, the campaign lacked clear and precise objectives. Its declared purposes ranged from eliminating an imminent threat and destroying Iran’s military capabilities to compelling Tehran to accept a new nuclear agreement. However, statements by President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that regime change was the main objective of the war. 

In his February 28 address announcing major combat operations, Trump justified the war as necessary to eliminate an imminent Iranian threat to the United States, its forces, bases, and allies, but did not clearly explain what made the threat imminent or how the military campaign would eliminate it. He also claimed that Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan had already been destroyed while presenting a new agreement renouncing Iran’s nuclear ambitions as one of the war’s objectives. The campaign’s other goals—destroying Iran’s missile capabilities and industry, annihilating its navy, and neutralizing its regional proxies—were similarly expansive and offered no clear standard by which victory could be measured. Trump concluded by encouraging the Iranian people to seize control of the state once the bombing ended: “When we are finished bombing, it will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.”

Netanyahu was more explicit in presenting the........

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