Epic Faux Pas: How Trump Keeps Shifting The Goalpost In The War Against Iran

The February-March 2026 US-Israel versus Iran war has entered its second week now, militarily engulfing several Gulf nations. Further widening the zone of conflict was the American torpedo attack on the Iranian ship IRIS Dena about 44 nautical miles off Sri Lanka’s southern coast. The economic effect of the war in this resource-rich region, which lies adjacent to the third-busiest sea lane in the world, is proving to be much more widespread and potentially unbearable.

From a politico-military perspective, the two most shocking ambiguities are: first, the rapidly shifting objectives of the US. Second, who exactly is driving the campaign—the US or Israel? The US started the war with the express purpose of self-defence—protecting US forces and interests in the region. Alongside these came objectives to “annihilate” the Iranian navy, destroy Iran’s missile sites and programmes, and weaken the network of Iran-backed terrorist and armed groups across the region. Following the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, regime change in Iran became another declared objective. To quote US President Donald Trump: “This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country.” The latest addition to this array of aims is control over the selection of the next ruler of Iran and possible support to insurgency in the Kurdish region to further stretch the Iranian forces.

With new war aims unfolding every other day, there is violation of the master principle of war—selection and maintenance of aims, which requires clear and unambiguous definitions of objectives and concentration of efforts to achieve it, even while adapting to changing circumstances. In the June 2025 US-Israel versus Iran war, Israel began the 12-day operations with Operation Rising Lion, completely disrupting Iran’s command and control, early warning, air defence and communication set-up. The US concluded it with Operation Midnight Hammer, the largest B-2 operational strike in its history, to destroy or severely degrade Iran’s nuclear programme, with precision attacks against three nuclear facilities—Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. With key networks disrupted and senior commanders killed or forced into hardened shelters, Iran’s decision-making ability was paralysed, and a victorious Trump with no American casualties was able to broker a truce.

The current situation is vastly different; escalation or de-escalation is not within control of any single warring party. The US has suffered casualties. Retaliatory strikes on all sides have targeted unarmed civilians, including schools and hospitals.

Iran has put in place capabilities to retaliate despite a hard knock on its top leadership and asymmetric correlations in air and maritime power. Israel is not in a hurry to conclude; it is seeing a grand opportunity to achieve debilitating damage on Iran’s missile and nuclear capability and severely weakening Iran’s ability to support the Hezbollah. Israel has expanded its air bombardment and ground invasion of Lebanon in its offensive against the Hezbollah. Similarly, the raids against the Palestinians have continued. Support for the war is strong in Israel, and there appears to be consensus. Even though Israel is facing the maximum weight of Iran’s retaliatory strikes, the damage in Israel has been very limited. This time, Israel’s multi-layered air defence system has been successful. Politically, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s framing of the Iranian issue as an “existential threat” and the call for its decimation is helping to unify the country and building resilience.

The Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain—have all condemned the Iranian strikes, and in the case of Oman, also criticised US-Israel action. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have characteristically been uneasy with Iran over regional influence. For now, it seems the Gulf states are publicly calling for peace and dialogue, while there are indicators that they would like the US to stay the course longer to further weaken Iran. For the Arab leaders, it is a manoeuvre between an expansionist and aggressive Israel on the one hand, and on the other, the ramifications of a potentially collapsed Iranian state.

Iran is a culturally diverse society with multiple ethnicities. Persians are the largest ethnic group (61 per cent), minority groups include Azeris (16 per cent), Kurds (10 per cent), Lurs (six per cent), Baluch and Arabs (both two per cent), Turkmen and other Turkic tribes (two per cent), and other nomadic people (about 1 per cent) of the total population. The Kurds have resisted the Iranian government’s efforts to assimilate them into the mainstream and, along with their fellow Kurds in the adjacent regions of Iraq and Turkey, sought either regional autonomy or the outright establishment of an independent Kurdish state in the region.

The mass uprising among the majority population against the ruling regime has not happened. On the contrary, the martyrdom of Khamenei has had a rallying effect against Israel and the US. It has helped the regime and its core supporters to consolidate, and the leadership transition has been smooth. The Trump administration appears to be exploring the possibility of collaborating with the minority Kurds. Last week, Trump reportedly spoke to some Kurdish leaders to support their insurgency. The aim would be to stretch the Iranian forces by reinvigorating the Kurdish movement, or help them seize and control northern Iran, and potentially create a buffer zone for Israel. Netanyahu had reportedly lobbied for the US-Kurds connection for months.

China’s wait-and-watch approach to Iran is consistent with its response to the June 2025 Israel-US-Iran war, and the US military actions in Venezuela. It is clear that China is trying to stay on good terms with countries in the Gulf as much as with Iran. China is certainly leveraging this opportunity, using satellites for real-time understanding of US dispositions and capabilities and gain close insight into US doctrines. Most significantly, the hard arithmetic of US military expenditure in the theatre, their sidestepping contingencies from other theatres and the overall national replenishment capabilities are there for capable observers to see. Also, the precise targeting of some US assets by Iran does suggest external covert intelligence support.

For Iran, survival is victory. Its strategy is built on domestic civil-military endurance and regional-global deterrence. The civilian endurance is banking upon the influence of the regime’s core supporters—the ideologically highly motivated—on the majority of fence-sitters. The killing of the Supreme Leader has consolidated their position for now, and any attack on unarmed civilians will only fuel the thirst for revenge. The authoritarian regime and its suppressive capabilities provide a degree of sustainability until it is eroded. The military endurance is derived from the layered ballistic missile capabilities, long-range drones and a network of allied armed groups across the region.

Iran is trying to achieve regional deterrence by undertaking retaliatory strikes against the Gulf states to impose the cost for basing US forces and signalling to them the potential price of a long-drawn-out war. For Israel and the US, Iran’s regional deterrence is designed on the premise that the cost of the interceptors used by Israel and the US is far higher than the drones and missiles deployed by Iran for attacks. In addition to the higher costs, US resources are overstretched; there are reports of sidestepping air defence systems from other theatres. Extending the conflict in its current character imposes a much higher cost on the US. It’s no surprise that the US is exploring sub-conventional options—hopefully remembering Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and many others. These operations are messy, long-drawn-out, and neither cheap nor likely to yield significant gains.

Global deterrence to prolong this war is related to the economics of war. Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is (selectively) open. The US says that it would escort merchant shipping across the Strait and insure against political risks. Irrespective of the outcomes of such quick fixes, it is clear that with maritime conflict extending as far south as Sri Lanka, the disruptions have pushed oil prices up, threatening fertiliser and other critical supply chains, and will eventually increase international pressure for de-escalation.

There is much to learn from this unfolding campaign. For now, three key lessons: one, inflating a threat over and over and making it appear impossible for an amicable resolution can trap you in your own cobweb of information war. Two, if war is the only option, at least the aggressor must know when to stop, neither prematurely nor belatedly. Three, the mastery of asymmetric warfare in all possible contingencies is a must for national security.

(Views expressed are personal)

Lt Gen Dr Subrata Saha (Retd) is executive chairman of Manekshaw Centre Of National Security Studies And Research and former member NSAB and DCOAS

This article is part of Outlook 's March 21 issue Bombs Do Not Liberate Women which looks at the conflict in West Asia following US and Israel’s attacks on Iran leading to the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the world wondered in loud silence, again, Whose War Is It Anyway?