“We are roaming free over Tehran, can do whatever,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on March 25. “We literally have planes flying over Tehran... they can’t do a thing about it,” he told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, listing what he called the achievements of the war. Nine days later, on the 35th day of the war, Iran shot down two American fighter jets and hit at least one Black Hawk helicopter, dramatically increasing the cost of war for the American President.
On March 5, the Israel Defence Force said Israel had destroyed 80% of Iran’s air defence systems and more than 60% of its ballistic missile launchers, “a very significant achievement that reduces the damage to the home front”. Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of War, stated on March 10 that, “[W]e are winning decisively with brutal efficiency, total air dominance”. Over the past few weeks, Mr. Trump had repeatedly claimed that the U.S. was winning the war. He said Iran was being “decimated”; its navy, air force, radars and anti-aircraft systems were all “destroyed”. On April 1, in his primetime national address, Mr. Trump said the U.S. was completing all of its objectives of the war.
Air bases hit
Despite Mr. Trump’s claims of “destroying” Iran’s military capabilities, Tehran has continued to hit American bases in the Persian Gulf and hundreds of targets in Israel. According to an investigation of satellite images by the New York Times, “many of the 13 American military bases in the region are all but uninhabitable”. [Both in Israel and the Gulf monarchies, there is a strict censorship on the impact of the Iranian attack.]
