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Three months after attacking Iran, US President Donald Trump faces a bigger question: Is he losing the war?
With Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, its resistance to nuclear concessions and its government largely intact, doubts are growing that Trump can translate the US military’s tactical successes into an outcome he can frame convincingly as a geopolitical win.
His repeated claims of complete victory ring hollow, some analysts say, as the two sides teeter between uncertain diplomacy and his on-again-off-again threats to resume strikes, which would be sure to draw Iranian retaliation across the region.
Trump is now at risk of seeing the US and its Gulf Arab allies emerge from the conflict worse off, while Iran, though battered militarily and economically, could end up with greater leverage, having shown it can throttle one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies.
