Shifting goals and rising costs mark Trump’s search for an Iran exit

March 22, 2026 — 1:45pm

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Washington: Ever since US President Donald Trump began what he now delicately calls his “excursion” into Iran, Washington has been consumed by the question of when he would call it a day – even if many of his war goals remain unaccomplished.

On Friday evening (US time), as he headed to Florida, Trump seemed to be designing that much-discussed exit. But he clearly has not yet decided whether to take it.

And there is mounting evidence – the average petrol price approaching $US4 a gallon ($1.50 a litre), infrastructure in ruins across the Persian Gulf, a decimated Iranian theocracy digging in, and American allies at first rebuffing and now struggling with demands to patrol hostile waters – that the repercussions of Trump’s excursion may outlast his interest in it.

As always, Trump’s messaging is inconsistent, which his critics cite as evidence that he entered this conflict with no strategy, and his followers cheer as strategic ambiguity. With thousands of additional marines headed to the region and the pace of American and Israeli attacks quickening, Trump told reporters on Friday that he had no interest in a ceasefire because the US was “obliterating” Iran’s missile stocks, navy, air force and defence industrial base.

Hours later, perhaps sensitive to a Republican base understandably nervous about the political effects, he posted on his social media site that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East”.

But his latest list of those objectives left out a few of his previous goals and watered down others. He made no mention of defeating the Revolutionary Guard, which appears to remain in power, along with Mojtaba Khamenei, who has succeeded his father as supreme leader, though he has yet to be seen or heard in public. Trump also omitted any message to the Iranian people, whom he told only three weeks ago: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.”

And after insisting in the failed negotiations that led up to the war that Iran had to ship all of its nuclear........

© WA Today