PUBLISHED
April 05, 2026
KARACHI:
From the outset of the US-Israel war against Iran, both sides have been fighting completely different battles. Washington is chasing total domination, while Tehran measures victory as survival, and by that standard, despite Donald Trump’s claims, it’s doing much better than the White House would like to admit. Five weeks in, the US has already declared victory half a dozen times, even claiming the regime had changed. Reality, however, says otherwise. The slain Ayatollah Khamenei’s son has taken over as Iran’s new supreme leader, giving hardliners a younger face and every reason to press on. Mojtaba Khamenei, widely seen as having deep ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, now sits at the center of Tehran’s power structure. He also served in the Habib Battalion during the Iran-Iraq War at just 17, which shows his long-standing involvement in the regime’s ideological and military networks.
Iran, despite its limitations, a restricted air force, a weak navy, and an economy only just partially emerging from sanctions, cannot match America’s military might or its air superiority. What it does have, however, is the Shahed drone — cheap, expendable, and effective. It has slipped through the cracks of Israel’s air defence systems and struck repeatedly. That alone, coupled with Iran’s other low-cost but effective ammunition, has started to shift the war’s cost calculus in its favour. For every drone that costs around $20,000, the US or Israel is forced to respond with far more expensive interceptors. That imbalance alone complicates any claim of a quick or decisive victory. American jets, including at least one F-15 in early April, have reportedly been shot down. Two Blackhawk helicopters were also hit, and Tehran claimed that an F-35, the so-called king of stealth, was struck as well. None of this matches the repeated claims by Trump and his Secretary of Defense that Iran’s air defences were obliterated.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to maintain its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, despite Trump’s assertions that Tehran’s navy had been sunk. The country has successfully disrupted energy shipments and brought supplies to a grinding halt, sending shockwaves through global markets and increasing pressure on Washington. And over a month into the conflict, the US still cannot secure access to a waterway that allows Iran to control roughly 20% of global energy traffic.
Apart from the destruction of civilian infrastructure, water systems, and hospitals, US‑Israeli attacks that under international law could constitute war crimes have left more than 1,900 Iranians dead. But there’s another casualty no one talks about – trust.
Since his first term, Trump has systematically undermined whatever trust existed between the two sides. He withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal, even as European partners insisted Iran was complying. By 2025, he became the first US president to join Israel in launching attacks on Iran, and in February 2026, the first to go to war alongside Israel — a step many predecessors had resisted, much to Benjamin Netanyahu’s frustration. Ironically, the conflict began just as negotiators from Oman reported progress between the two sides. Trump and Netanyahu, according to Oman’s foreign minister, preempted the March deadline by dropping bombs.
Fast forward to last week – it is early April, and the president addressed the nation in a hall packed with administration loyalists. In decades past, much of America would pause for a prime-time presidential address during an ongoing war to hear about gains. This time, Trump appeared before both the global audience and a domestic public — waiting for a single update: news of the war’s end. Instead, the president told the world it was not over yet.
For a speech so highly anticipated, it left many questions unanswered: how to handle the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, or what the plan is for the thousands of US troops heading to the region. The strongest part of Trump’s address was his explanation of why Iran had to be confronted: negotiations, he said, hadn’t worked. Yet just days before the speech, he had called the talks with Tehran “excellent” and even claimed to have received gifts of oil tankers from the regime. In the speech itself, he shifted the blame to his predecessors, insisting that appeasement by the Obama and Biden administrations had only empowered Tehran. Trump spoke about everything but an end to the conflict. He focused on Iran’s chokehold over global shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, noting it didn’t hit the US as hard but was hurting allies — who he hadn’t consulted before authorizing military action that rattled global markets. His response, essentially, was to tell others to “deal with it” or, in his words, “grab it and cherish it”, a stance that did little except push oil prices much higher. In true Trump style, he also warned Iran of bombing them “to the stone ages, where they belong.” Experts say statements like that do nothing to rebuild trust, especially as mediators, including Pakistan, try to secure a negotiated end to the conflict. With a president who has delivered a running commentary on the war, frequently yo-yoing in both messaging and strategy, analysts are left with little doubt that Trump is, as one former UK defense official put it, “delusional.” Anyone hoping for clarity or reassurance from the president’s address came away with plenty of disappointment.
Who is responsible for the war?
Responsibility for the conflict lies primarily with the United States and Israel. When the first bombs fell, Iran was still at the table, with substantial progress made before the March deadline. Trump, following Netanyahu’s push, opted for a military strike instead of diplomacy, choosing escalation over restraint. Barbara Slavin, author and distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center said, “Bibi failed to convince previous American presidents to strike Iran.” The Israeli prime minister, she added, succeeded with Trump last June — and even more disastrously now. “Trump ignored advice from those who understood the risks, and his sycophantic cabinet cheered him on.”
Laying the blame squarely on Trump, Ashok Swain, a professor of peace and conflict at Uppsala University, said:“He had the power to stop escalation and didn’t use it.” “Netanyahu pushed for confrontation and helped set the timing,” he added, “but Israel couldn’t have carried out this campaign without Washington’s backing.” He said that the administration, especially the Secretary of State and Secretary of War, also sold the idea that force could reshape Iran without creating wider chaos. In the end, Swain said, the decisive political responsibility rests squarely with Trump, because he turned escalation into policy.
What mistakes were made?
The short answer is: several. Washington didn’t just miscalculate; it fundamentally misread the adversary it set out to unseat in Tehran. Experts have been warning that this conflict may mark the beginning of the end of America’s security order in the region. Contrary to Trump’s assumptions that Iran would fold like Venezuela and he could control its leadership and oil reserves, Tehran proved far tougher to crack. The regime is layered, systematic, and resilient, even in its succession planning and survival.
Trump’s misstep, analysts say, will cost the United States for years to come. Countries across the Middle East that once felt protected under Washington’s umbrella now face cheap, lethal drones and missile strikes from Iran, despite a massive US military presence. The continuing attacks have pushed some nations to quietly turn toward Beijing, which watches as Washington struggles to maintain credibility.
Slavin argued that the war started from a fundamental misunderstanding of Iran’s internal dynamics. “Despite widespread unpopularity, there is no organized opposition capable of overthrowing the regime, and the government has shown it can crush protests efficiently.” Bombing, she said, only hardened Iranian resolve.
According to Swain, the first mistake was assuming military pressure could force political change in Iran — a fantasy aggressively pushed by Netanyahu. The second was sidelining diplomacy, as if force alone could do the work of negotiation. The third, he added, is the current muddled messaging: strikes continue while the administration sends mixed signals, deepening mistrust and undermining both diplomacy and deterrence. In Swain’s view, Trump entered the conflict without a realistic plan and is now trying to exit without owning that failure.
Can Trump be trusted?
One of the strongest obstacles to ending the conflict between the US and Iran isn’t missiles or drones, it’s trust. Years of broken promises, abrupt withdrawals from agreements, and aggressive posturing have left Tehran, and even the world, deeply suspicious of Washington’s intentions. That skepticism now haunts efforts at diplomacy, even as mediators push for an end to the war.
Vali Nasr, a leading Middle East expert, warned about this growing trust deficit. He said one of the reasons President Trump is struggling to deal with Iran is that the Iranians “don’t trust even talking to them about the deal, because they think this might be a ruse.” “People in Iran actually believe that the whole purpose of trying to organize a meeting between Americans and Iranians in Islamabad is to smoke them out of their hiding places so they can be targeted,” Nasr explained during an interview with CNN. Trump, according to Nasr, now has to contend with the legacy of distrust he himself created. The problem, he said, is not that the Iranians don’t want to talk. “Every war ultimately has to end diplomatically. The problem is that the distrust Trump has created is so huge that it makes finding a way to get the Iranians to agree to terms extremely difficult,” Nasr concluded.
Reinforcing that view, Swain said: “From Tehran’s perspective, Trump has shown that agreements can be discarded, negotiations abandoned, and talk of peace can happen at the same time as military strikes.” The Sweden-based academic cautioned that any future diplomacy will be narrower and far more fragile. “It also damages America’s standing with European allies, who were sidelined and then expected to fall in line. The problem now is not only that Iran distrusts the United States — it is that America has made itself look strategically unreliable to almost everyone involved.”
Adding further caution, Slavin said the “America First” strategy has left the US isolated. “The president has burned most bridges with European and other allies. As for Iran, he would have to come through with concrete economic benefits, and even then, there would be little to no trust between the US and Iran.”
Where do Trump’s claims stand?
Defeat, analysts say, has never sounded so victorious. By all measures, Trump’s claimed wins read more like losses. He insists he has succeeded on every front, meeting objectives that shift like lines in the sand, yet the conflict drags on. He claims the regime in Tehran has been changed — it hasn’t. If anything, it is harder, more entrenched than before. As Keith Richburg, American journalist and former foreign correspondent, put it: removing tyranny is easy; changing an entire regime is not. Trump is trapped in a catch-22 — the war drags on, and there’s no way to claim success without looking weak and in the end he may end up dealing with the same regime in Tehran.
Slavin of the Stimson Center added that the Iranian regime remains intact, and even the president seems to recognize it. “When he lies, he tells big lies as if that will somehow make them true,” she said. She warned that the conflict is set to bring more death and destruction, noting that authoritarian regimes often survive while the population bears the suffering.
Swain of Uppsala University said Washington got it wrong from the start. The assumption that pressure would empower moderates, he noted, was always flawed. In systems like Iran, he said, external attacks tend to strengthen hardline factions, allowing them to present themselves as defenders of the state. “Instead of opening political space, this conflict has likely narrowed it, consolidating power around those least interested in negotiation or compromise.”
Is there a way out?
At this point, it appears that even Trump may not know how to exit a war that is battering him at home and isolating the United States globally. Several European allies, who might otherwise have signed on the dotted line, have openly refused to play along. He berated them, claiming he didn’t need their support, but countries like Spain and France had already blocked US access to their airspace for operations against Iran. France, in particular, has insisted on diplomacy — experts say it remains the only viable path forward.
Swain cautioned that if negotiations collapse, the conflict is unlikely to end decisively. Every new act of violence, he noted, strengthens Tehran’s conviction that compromise only invites coercion, making future diplomacy even harder. Slavin added that permanent sanctions relief could offer a way out, though she doubts Trump would commit. Without it, she said, the conflict could settle into a messy, uneasy de facto ceasefire — a temporary pause rather than a true resolution.
Even if the war ends soon, Swain warned that Iran will emerge more securitized, more in control, and more convinced that survival itself equals victory. “If it drags on, the regime may take damage, but it can still justify internal consolidation and external retaliation. Either way, I don’t see a more moderate Iran — only a harder, more suspicious, and more dangerous one for the US and its allies,” he concluded.
