Ex-Navy commander reveals 'mortal weakness' keeping Trump in chaos

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Trump National Doral Miami in Miami, Florida, U.S., March 9, 2026.

When President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury in late February, he promised a quick, brief offensive against the Iranian regime. But more than half a year later, the Iran war rages on. And author/Yorktown Institute President Seth Cropsey, who served as a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, highlights a "mortal weakness" the military is facing in an article for the conservative National Review.

"As the Iran war drags into its sixth month without a clear pathway to resolution," Cropsey writes in the Review, "one could forgive chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan 'Raizin' Caine for making a clear policy intervention. Yet it is remarkable that military professionals and the general public do not recognize this intervention as such[.] Six months without a serious policy choice should indicate to any policymaker or military officer that the American policy system has failed. The question is why."

Cropsey continues, "The standard answer, in which there is some truth, is to blame the lack of an interagency process. But the deeper issue during a war is necessarily that of military planning."

Cropsey fears that China could benefit from the lack of a resolution in the Iran war.

"The legacy of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 has made it nearly impossible for the president to receive a coherent menu of policy options in a conflict rather than the idealized end of policy advice," the conservative author explains. "The result is an increasingly militarized policy process. This is a problematic but manageable issue against Iran, considering the United States' relative advantages. Against a first-rate adversary, however, this is a mortal weakness. China will learn the limitations of America's policymaking system rapidly following this Middle Eastern adventure."

Cropsey adds, "The more rigid American policymaking becomes — and the more a constrained military advice system is reinforced — the more likely it is that China will present the United States, under this administration or the next, with a series of options that encourage capitulation[.] A series of leaks and off-the-record comments suggest that the choice for war with Iran was a decision made by an executive with limited strategic discipline."

Cropsey fears the moves that Mainland China's government will make in the months ahead.

"China's regional ambitions are clear," the former naval officer warns. "Whether by strength or guile, it wishes to shatter the American security system and, among other things, absorb Taiwan into its political orbit and break the First Island Chain. This would undermine America's position across Asia and destroy the global economy. The United States has an enormous, nearly existential interest in preventing this eventuality. The question is which means of resistance the U.S. should adopt."

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