Trump Is in Way Over His Head in Iran
Donald Trump’s war on Iran is barely half a week old, and with each day, it has become a bigger and bigger debacle.

Donald Trump is struggling to settle on a single consistent rationale for his war on Iran. (Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Going into this past weekend, many, many people warned that the war with Iran that Donald Trump is now embroiled in could go horribly wrong. But there are few, if any, who predicted it would go this wrong, this fast.
Only three days in, the war is already emerging as an even bigger political liability for Donald Trump than when he launched it with only 27 percent support. The Pentagon has admitted that, officially, four US service members are dead, a number many observers suspect is a vast undercount, which both Trump and the Pentagon seem to be hinting is true. The de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz is already sending oil prices skyward, threatening to worsen the affordability crisis that gave Republicans an electoral black eye five months ago.
The US military is burning through its already depleted stockpiles of interceptors and other munitions, and even hawkish military experts doubt it has enough for a war lasting more than a week. US bases and hotels housing American service members have been hit in four different Gulf states. On top of that, three US fighter jets were shot down yesterday in what the Pentagon says was an incident of friendly fire from one of its own security partners, Kuwait.