GEOPOLITICS: Why Donald Trump Finds Himself Trapped in His War Against Iran

Nuclear program, missiles, the regime: Which is the target?

The hallmark of a well-managed war is a clear and consistent objective. Yet, when it comes to Iran, Washington’s stated goals have constantly shifted. Franceinfo notes that Donald Trump has “made a series of contradictory statements, alternately claiming to want to end Iran’s nuclear program, eradicate the country’s ballistic capabilities, bring about regime change, or counter an imminent threat.” These are four distinct objectives, none of which require the same resources, the same timeframe, or the same resolution. Eradicating a nuclear program is a targeted operation. Overthrowing a regime is an undertaking of an entirely different scale—one that is historically long and uncertain. By leaving these goals open-ended, the U.S. administration has made it impossible to clearly discern what it is truly seeking—and thus what would constitute a victory. Without a definition of victory, there can be no possible end.

Trump’s own words illustrate this ambiguity. A source cited on social media quotes him as saying, regarding Iran: “What we’re doing now is putting an end to any chance they have of having a nuclear missile,” before publicly correcting the word “probably” that he had just used. This hesitation over a single word speaks volumes about the strategic vagueness. A few days earlier, he had spoken of a “four-week” war, then declared at a rally in Hebron, Kentucky: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We have to finish the job, don’t we?” When the timeline shifts from four weeks to “finishing the job” without redefining what the job is, it’s no longer a war we’re waging—it’s a headlong rush disguised as determination. The shifting objective is the fuel for the trap.

One-fifth of the World’s Oil Held Hostage

There is one spot on the map where theory becomes reality: the Strait of Hormuz. Franceinfo notes that this waterway, effectively controlled by the Iranian government, handles one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas production. Blocking it is not an abstract threat. Courrier international, citing the New York Times, confirms that the strait is “once again blocked” following the breakdown of the ceasefire. The price per barrel neared $120 earlier this week, according to Franceinfo, before falling back. But fears of a sustained spike in energy costs remain high. This is how a war launched in the name of security creates global economic insecurity, hitting first and foremost the wallets of people who had no say in the matter. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz transforms a regional conflict into a global shockwave.

This blockade is not just another instance of collateral damage: it may be the very heart of the trap. Courrier international notes that the war “has created a new problem that seems insoluble and is leading to the obstruction of the Strait of Hormuz.” In other words, the military action intended to resolve one threat has created another, one that may be even harder to undo. Iran now has leverage that the U.S. strikes have failed to neutralize—and may even have prompted it to activate. One-fifth of the world’s hydrocarbons depend on a strait that Tehran can close: this is a card that American firepower alone cannot overturn. One can destroy sites and command centers; one does not bomb a maritime passageway in order to reopen it. Iran’s leverage is not military; it is geographical—and geography does not yield to missiles.

The Illusion of a Short War

What the United States is experiencing in Iran is not unprecedented. Courrier International, citing The New York Times, places this conflict in a grim lineage: after Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Washington has reportedly fallen “into the trap of yet another dead-end conflict.” The comparison is not unfounded. It is based on a pattern identified by Lawrence D. Freedman, professor emeritus at King’s College London and a renowned expert on war, who authored an article in 2025 titled “The Age of Endless Wars” in the journal Foreign Affairs. According to him, powerful leaders with powerful armies succumb to “the illusion of a short war.” They believe, he says, “they can win quickly and without adverse consequences.” This illusion is not an individual weakness: it is a structural trap that lies in wait for anyone who overestimates what military force alone can accomplish.

Freedman does not limit his critique to Trump. He places the U.S. president and Vladimir Putin in the same category of error: those who “fail to appreciate the limits of military force, so that they set objectives that can only be achieved after a protracted struggle—if at all.” This comparison is worth considering. Putin, in Ukraine, believed the war would last a few days; it has now been going on for more than four years. The comparison does not place the two causes on the same moral plane, nor will I do so: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine remains a reprehensible invasion. But in terms of strategic clarity, Freedman’s warning applies to everyone: to believe that one can win quickly is already to have begun losing slowly, one hasty decision after another.

An agreement seen as “war by other means”

There was an agreement. It no longer holds. Courrier International, citing The New York Times, describes a situation in which the ceasefire has broken down and the agreement between Tehran and Washington appears to be “at an impasse.” An expert quoted by the American daily puts the failure in striking terms: both sides reportedly viewed the agreement as “a continuation of the war by other means, rather than a stepping stone to peace.” In other words, no one was truly negotiating to stop the fighting. Each side was seeking a tactical advantage. This interpretation explains why the truce did not last: a ceasefire that is not intended as a peace agreement is merely a pause before the fighting resumes. And the fighting has resumed. Donald Trump’s plans, notes Courrier international, have been “thwarted”: the war has resumed, the ceasefire has broken down, and the strait is blocked.

A specific disagreement fueled the collapse. According to the website Dreuz, which advocates a pro-Trump interpretation, Iran and the United States interpreted a clause in the memorandum of understanding concerning the Strait of Hormuz “in fundamentally different ways,” which contributed to the failure. This same media outlet presents this ambiguity as a trap deliberately set by Trump to buy time—an interpretation that no independent sources can confirm as fact. I am pointing this out as a partisan interpretation, not as a proven truth. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that he is not abandoning the diplomatic path, which at least indicates that Washington does not consider the negotiations to be over. When an agreement falls apart because of a misunderstood clause regarding a strait, it is not diplomacy that has failed: it is because neither side had truly decided to stop fighting.

Public Opinion Shifts Ahead of the Midterms

The war in Iran isn’t just being fought in the Middle East. It’s also playing out in U.S. polls. RTL notes that as the midterm elections approach, the handling of the conflict “is undermining Donald Trump, who faces largely unfavorable public opinion and an uncertain political climate.” For a president who made his opposition to war a key campaign platform, this is a costly contradiction. Moktar Gaouad highlights this disconnect: part of the electorate no longer recognizes the man who promised to keep America out of distant conflicts. The trap is thus closing in on two fronts simultaneously. Externally, a war with no stable objective or visible exit strategy. Internally, an electoral base destabilized by a reversal it had not anticipated—and one that the president’s inner circle is struggling to justify.

This domestic dimension changes the nature of the problem. An unpopular war just months before a national election becomes as much a matter of political survival as it is a strategic issue. The president finds himself torn: backing down would mean admitting failure to an already skeptical public; persevering would mean widening the rift with a segment of his anti-war electorate. Neither path is comfortable. This is the very definition of a political trap: every possible outcome carries a cost that the decision-maker was precisely trying to avoid. A president may win battles abroad but lose the one that matters most to him just months before an election—the narrative he had sold to his own voters. Domestic political calculations now weigh on every strike.

A War of Attrition with Far-Reaching Consequences

Who benefits from this stalemate, and who pays the price? Experts interviewed by Franceinfo “envision a prolonged stalemate in the conflict, with potentially harmful consequences.” The objective described by the media outlet is to “instigate a war of attrition.” The term says it all: attrition knows no quick victor, only a slow erosion of resources, patience, and lives. The global energy cost is the first tangible manifestation of this, with the threat of a sustained spike in energy prices linked to the Strait of Hormuz. This cost does not primarily affect decision-makers. It hits households, businesses, and already fragile economies around the world. A decision made in Washington and Tehran translates into bills for countries that have no say in the matter. This is the hallmark of wars of attrition: they spread their costs far beyond the battlefield.

On the ground, the cycle of violence continues. According to Dreuz, the U.S. military has completed a ninth round of strikes against Iranian command centers and air defense sites, while Iran is responding by firing high-speed, maneuverable missiles at U.S. bases in the region. The same media outlet reports a claim by an Iranian propagandist suggesting a possible ground invasion of Kuwait to seize U.S. bases—an allegation attributed to a single, hostile source, which I am reporting as such without verifying it. Nine rounds of strikes, an adversary that adapts, a strait blocked off: this is not the outcome of a war being won; it is the inventory of a machine running on autopilot. The wear and tear has already begun to take its toll.

The trap remains open

The word “trap” appears in every serious analysis, and this is no coincidence. Gaouad speaks of a man trapped by his own rhetoric. Gaillaud describes a president caught in his own trap. Freedman classifies Trump among the leaders who have fallen victim to the illusion of a short war. The New York Times, via Courrier international, places him in the same category as Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These voices do not share the same political perspective, and yet they converge. They describe the same pattern: a promise of peace turned into an escalation, shifting objectives, diplomacy stripped of its substance, a blocked strait, and public opinion turning against him. Each piece fits into the next. And the more time passes, the narrower the options become. This is not a prediction: it is an assessment of the situation as of July 20, 2026.

One question remains that no one, at this stage, can answer definitively. How do you end a war whose goal has never been clearly defined? Trump had promised not to start one. He is waging a protracted war, the cost of which extends far beyond his borders, and whose timeline he no longer controls. Military force has no button to reopen a strait or to rewind a broken promise. Perhaps that is the true face of the trap: not a resounding defeat, but a quiet impossibility of saying when and how it will end. Endless wars do not end with a surrender; they peter out through exhaustion, when no one remembers what they were trying to gain by starting them in the first place. For now, the door remains locked from the inside. And while strategy is debated in Washington and Tehran, it is the people—who have no say in the matter—who are paying the price for a trap that none of them helped set.

By Jacques PJ Provost, columnist