Trump’s Iran quagmire requires a 'military miracle': NYT editorial

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media on board Air Force One on the way to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 12, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

President Donald Trump has repeatedly offered optimistic projects about the Iran war, but according to a prominent columnist, he is actually caught in a “quagmire” that will require a “military miracle” to be resolved.

“Here is the present situation, in a nutshell: The United States and Israel have established absolute air dominance over the nation of Iran,” wrote columnist David French from The New York Times on Thursday. “In a few short days, our combined forces have destroyed Iran’s ability to protect its own airspace, have killed much of Iran’s senior military and civilian leadership, and have sunk much of Iran’s navy.”

Citing the Institute for the Study of War, French pointed out that if Iran manages to get America to withdraw despite closing down the Strait of Hormuz, they will declare a victory by seemingly forcing the West to withdraw due to economic pressure. This, in turn, will make them more inclined to use similar economic coercion tactics in the future.

“That’s the logic that leads to a quagmire,” French wrote. “If America declares victory now, when the Iranian regime is still in power and the strait is closed, then Iran perversely can claim that it won. It took a huge punch, absorbed the blow, and still forced America to climb down. It employed its ultimate weapon — closing the strait — and America had no effective answer.”

He added, “Commit to opening the strait (and keeping it open) by force, and the U.S. may well find itself in yet another open-ended, costly conflict with at least some American soldiers on Iranian soil. This would be war on our enemy’s terms and terrain, with the potential of slowly but surely inflicting casualties and costs on the American military until we grow tired of the conflict and leave.” Only a “military miracle” can avoid either outcome, “a fast campaign with minimal casualties that can quickly reopen the strait, minimize harm to the international economy and leave Iran almost entirely toothless, unable to inflict military or economic damage on its foes.”

If Trump fails to accomplish this, French predicted that he would leave Iran in a predicament similar to that facing Iraq after President George H. W. Bush’s Iraq war.

“When Saddam Hussein faced a catastrophic defeat during Operation Desert Storm, he doubled down,” French wrote. “He tried to kill George H.W. Bush, he supported the second intifada against Israel, his troops fired on American pilots. He harbored terrorists. Defeat did not make him any less of an enemy to the United States, and in 2003 we fought him again, in a much longer and bloodier war.”

He concluded, “Trump has only himself to blame. He led America into an unconstitutional war. And now he’s compounding that sin by proving to be every bit as reckless a commander as he is a president.”

In an article published Wednesday by The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer, the journalist argued that Trump has made his situation in Iran war unnecessarily worse by alienating all of America’s allies.

"After a decade of trashing American allies as freeloaders," Serwer wrote, "President Trump is begging for their help in opening the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway adjacent to Iran sometimes referred to as the 'jugular' of the world economy. Those allies aren't exactly jumping at the chance to join Trump's war on Iran — not a single one has taken the offer. That leaves the president trapped in a needless war of choice that he started and is unable to finish. Iran's leverage over the global economy is increasing as oil prices rise and the strait remains closed to the U.S. and its allies. Now, basically anyone could have told Trump that spending the past few years antagonizing allies with aggressive tariffs, belligerent arm-twisting, and imperial dismissiveness would hurt him when the time came to ask those same allies for help."

Serwer concluded, "But this isn't a simple strategic miscalculation or even a typical Trumpian incompetence — it's the result of a particular ideological fantasy of American independence from foreign alliances, one that is oblivious to how those alliances long served American interests. Americans are learning the hard way that the economic costs of the autarky pursued by Trump are far worse than those of the 'globalism' he opposes."

Despite these ongoing problems, Trump declared at a Thursday White House press conference that Iran is losing the war because “their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. Their leaders are gone. We're flying wherever we want; we have nobody even shooting at us. ... And, as you know, their leadership is gone."

By contrast, CNN's Haley Britzky reported on X that indeed America has been shot at.

"New: A US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at US air base in the Middle East after it was struck by what is believed to be Iranian fire, according to two sources familiar with the matter tell me and [CNN’s Oren Liebermann],” Britzky wrote. “CENTCOM spox Capt. Tim Hawkins said an F-35 made the landing safely after flying a combat mission over Iran and that the pilot is in stable condition."

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