Foreign Policy

Trump's War in Iran Risks Ruining His Entire Foreign Policy

The president’s attempt to manage the consequences of the war is adding wrinkles to his diplomatic goals in Ukraine, China, and other countries.

Daniel DePetris | 3.27.2026 12:01 PM

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If you ask the Trump administration, the war in Iran is going as well as anyone could have hoped. The U.S. military has struck over 10,000 Iranian targets. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani, and Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh have all been killed. Iran is in such pitiful shape, President Donald Trump alleged on March 26, that the leadership in Tehran is "begging to make a deal."

Iran is bloodied but resolute. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively shuttered, with daily traffic reduced by at least 94 percent since the war began. Iran's asymmetric strategy of attacking Gulf Arab energy facilities and tankers has forced production cuts, leading to the world's largest swing in oil prices. Americans are feeling it in their wallets, with a gallon of regular gas costing about a dollar more than it did a month ago.

Yet as the war approaches the one-month mark, its ramifications are beginning to grate on Trump's larger foreign policy agenda. If the conflict with Iran holds any lessons at all, it's that a single decision, if not fully thought through or sufficiently debated, can hamper a country's entire foreign policy by creating more problems than it solves. 

The Trump administration's attempt to negotiate a settlement in Ukraine is a case in point. From the moment Trump campaigned for a second term, he has pointed to the war in Ukraine as the epitome of a feckless, wasteful U.S. foreign policy. Whether or not one believes this assertion, it motivated Trump to push for a diplomatic endgame to the yearslong war. Those efforts have had little success.........

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