UNMET GOALS
Those costs highlight a deeper problem: the war has failed to achieve many of Trump's stated goals.
While there is little doubt that waves of U.S. and Israeli strikes heavily degraded Iran’s military capabilities, many of Trump’s often-shifting war objectives - from regime change to shutting Iran's path to a nuclear weapon - remain unfulfilled.
Fears for a more protracted deadlock have grown since Trump called off a trip by his negotiators to Islamabad last weekend and then dismissed an Iranian offer to halt the war, suspended since April 8 under a ceasefire agreement.
Tehran proposed setting aside discussion of its nuclear program until the conflict is formally ended and a deal is reached on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. That was a non-starter for Trump, who has demanded the nuclear issue be dealt with at the outset.
There was a glimmer of hope on Friday when state news agency IRNA reported Tehran had sent a revised proposal through Pakistani mediators, causing a drop in global oil prices that had risen sharply since Iran effectively closed the strait. Trump told reporters he was "not satisfied" with the offer, though he said there were ongoing contacts by phone.
A failure to wrest the vital oil-shipping waterway from Iranian control at the conclusion of the conflict would be a major blow to Trump’s legacy.
“He’d be remembered as the U.S. president who made the world less safe,” said Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East expert at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said Iran’s "desperation" is increasing due to military and economic pressure, and Trump "holds all the cards and has all the time he needs to make the best deal."

RESUMPTION OF HOSTILITIES?
With his next steps uncertain and no clear endgame, Trump has in private meetings raised the prospect of a prolonged naval blockade of Iran, possibly for months more, aimed at further squeezing off its oil exports and forcing it to reach a denuclearization agreement, a White House official said on condition of anonymity.
At the same time, he has left the door open to resuming military action. The U.S. Central Command has prepared options for a "short and powerful" series of strikes as well as for taking over part of the strait to reopen it to shipping, Axios reported on Thursday.
European diplomats said their governments, whose relations with Trump have been strained by the war, expect the current situation with Iran to persist.
"It's hard to see how this will end soon," said one, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Iran has remained defiant.
It has exerted powerful leverage against the U.S. and its allies, triggering an unprecedented energy supply shock by choking off shipping in the strait, where tanker traffic flowed freely before the war, carrying a fifth of the world’s oil.
Analysts say Iran will be emboldened knowing that it will have this weapon at its disposal even after the war.
“Iran has realized that, even in a weakened state, it can shut off the Strait at will,” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “That knowledge leaves Iran stronger than it was before the war."

URANIUM STOCKPILE REMAINS
Trump - who took office promising to avoid entanglement in foreign interventions - has also failed to achieve his main stated aim in attacking Iran on February 28: to close off its path to a nuclear weapon.
A stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to remain buried following U.S. and Israeli airstrikes last June and could be recovered and further processed into bomb-grade material. Iran says it wants the U.S. to recognize its right to enrich uranium for what it says are peaceful purposes.
Wales, the White House spokeswoman, said Trump had "met or surpassed" all military objectives, including action "to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon."
Another of Trump’s declared war goals – forcing Iran to stop support for proxy groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Palestinian Hamas – also remains unmet.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in congressional testimony, denied the conflict had become a “quagmire," despite Trump having initially predicted it would be over in four to six weeks.
Renewed peace talks are unlikely to yield a quick resolution, given the large gaps.
Though Trump has said he will accept nothing less than a long-term solution to the threat posed by Iran, he has at times shown signs of seeking an exit plan from an unpopular conflict.
At the request of Trump’s aides, intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would respond if he declared a unilateral victory and pulled back, U.S. officials have told Reuters.
Independent analysts say Tehran would interpret that as its own strategic success for having survived the military onslaught.
At the same time, European and Gulf Arab diplomats have expressed concern that Trump might eventually agree to a flawed deal that would allow a wounded Iran to remain a threat.

RISK OF 'FROZEN CONFLICT'
With negotiations deadlocked, some analysts have suggested the war could devolve into a frozen conflict that would defy a permanent solution. That could prevent Trump from significantly scaling down forces in the Middle East.
The U.S. is already paying new strategic costs.
Those include fractures with traditional European allies, who were not consulted before Trump went to war.
He has harshly criticized NATO partners for not sending their navies to help open the strait, and in the past week spoke about possibly drawing down troops in Germany, Spain and Italy.
Trump also must deal with a more hardline Iranian leadership, dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that took over after U.S.-Israeli strikes killed several figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The president's call at the start of the conflict for the Iranian people to overthrow their rulers has gone unheeded.
At home, Trump is under pressure to end a war that has dragged his approval rating to the lowest level of his term – 34%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll – and spiked gasoline prices above $4 a gallon ahead of the midterms, in which Republicans are at risk of losing control of Congress.
A second White House spokeswoman, Taylor Rogers, said Trump was committed to maintaining his party's congressional majority and that high gasoline prices were only "short-term disruptions" that would be overcome as the conflict subsides.
The Iranians, however, are mindful of Trump’s domestic troubles and may be prepared to wait him out, but the question remains how long they can stave off economic calamity.
“Iran isn’t fractured or folding, it’s playing for time,” Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy think tank in Washington, wrote on X.

>>1511450
It literally already has left us worse off. Politically, this cost Trump midterms even more than his economic failures or the Epstein files did.

>>1511461
And keep in mind, everything has already been rigged in his favor with gerrymandering, voter suppression and a super favorable senate map.

>>1511464
And he's still going to lose because his approval rating is in the fucking 30s.

>>1511470
You'd be surprised at what rigging elections can do.
Like during the massie blue wave in 2018, Republicans managed to protect 15 seats because of gerrymadnering.
And now the Republican supreme court has made racist gerrymandering legal.

>>1511464
>gerrymandering, voter suppression and a super favorable senate map
>>1511470
>his approval rating is in the fucking 30s
it'll be absolutely hilarious if the overzealous gerrymandering ends up amplifying the blue wave and giving the democrats a super-majority
Trump may literally stroke out if he hears Congress overrode one of his vetoes

>>1511474
>>1511474
>hilarious if the overzealous gerrymandering
As of today the only states to have gerrymandered are New York, California and Virginia.

Lets just be honest.

>>1511476
its great
the people actually having to execute the gerrymander in red states know how risky it is to dilute a narrow red majority, especially when Trump is so unpopular
we're watching the Trump parasitically order the GOP to kill itself

>>1511472
If we would simply stick to the simple premise that only whites of European stock are Americans in the first place there would be no need for racist gerrymandering to keep people who don't belong here from voting. They shouldn't even be in the country, and while yes, now they are and we have to deal with that, we brought them in as farm equipment, not to be treated as intelligent and educated people deserving of a vote.

>>1511474
>It'd be hilarious if the way things were redesigned made it impossible for anyone but communists, feminists and minorities to ever win another election and the only alternative to brazilification was for Americans to go full fash and murder everyone south of brown if they ever want a reasonable election again

Working as intended, Anon, but the outcome isn't going to be a 'blue wave'.

>>1511480
>If we were super racist, this current racism wouldn't be problem.
Nazis lost the war BTW.

>>1511476
Don’t forget Illinois

>>1511482
You don't have to be a racist if all the brown people aren't here, you troglodyte. There's no need to clash with others when you keep them in slave plantations on another continent 3,000 miles away across an ocean, as was properly intended.

>>1511480
It’s weird how you use the term “stock”. You shouldn’t do that

>>1511487
>Stock, Noun, is a population or group of organisms that shares a distinct, defining genetic makeup.
Jesus Christ, read a book. Alternatively, don't care, didn't ask, fuck off. Faggot.

>>1511490
i'm not familiar with whatever debunked nonsense white supremacists are huddling around now
what are you citing?

>>1511450
“Could?” How the fuck could it not? This has been a fucking disaster. This entire administration has been a disaster, and it somehow keeps topping itself. That’s why they’re trying to rig the midterms.

>>1511490
>alternatively…
>bla bla bla, mumble mumble
You should not refer to my ancestors as stock like we’re farm animals you piece of shit. Do not do it, I do not like it, I find it offensive

>>1511493
I think he used a dictionary. I told at least one retard to do that yesterday, so good for him I guess it’s a start

>>1511485
>Doubles down on being racist

>>1511509
That’s his gimmick.

>>1511464
>rigged in his favor with gerrymandering
Even with the new Florida map it nets zero new GOP seats with California and Virginia's maps. Doing this on top of not having an actual plan to get energy prices down is going to end up hurting the GOP more than helping. Red hatters only care so much about Iran's nukes, gay beer cans, or trans swimmers when they can't buy fertilizer or fill up their trucks.

>>1511479
Red states are not actually gerrymandered. As I said, the only gerrymandering we have seen was in NY, VA and CA.

>>1511523
>Even with the new Florida map it nets zero new GOP seats with California and Virginia's maps
Yes, the extreme democrat gerrymanders have made it hard to compete.

>>1511525
>>1511526
Lies.

>>1511525
>>1511526
I want you to type out and post that only the Messiah can bring about Zion and that Israel is a false state in accordance to the Talmud and Orthodox Judaism.

>>1511534
I dont see what that has to do with the discussion at hand.

>>1511523
Are you ignoring all the new gerrymandering republicans are doing now that they can be openly racist again thanks to the republican supreme court?

>>1511450
>Iran standoff could leave Trump worse off than before he went to war
No 'Could' about it.
Stick a metaphorical fork in him, he's done.
>a certain bust Trump has in the Oval Office
'Jaw-jaw, not war-war'
-Winston Churchill
Clearly not read anything written by him, eh Trumpy? He was a prolific author, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The best you can do is a book written by Tony Schwartz.
>Clearly not read anything written by him, eh Trumpy?
No wonder, as that orange thing is functionally illiterate.

>>1511503
Once again, don't care, didn't ask, fuck off. Faggot.

>>1511571
god you're esl

Most definitely.
The problem is, he and the entire Republican Party do not give a shit. Trump could just start looting other Nato countries attacking them, and claim its to pay back what they owe.

>>1511612
If anyone attacks any NATO member there’s a probability of an invocation of article 5 which requires all members of NATO to defend the member under attack.
If the Americans were to do this they’d better be more prepared than they were starting this war with Iran

>>1511613
All US bases could be ordered to stage operations to take leaders hostage, while Trump threatens them all with nukes. Just don't call it a war, and its legal.

>>1511612
MAGA here, we're not going to be doing that.

The American Rights problem with Europe is that until very recently Europe didnt take defense seriously. As a result, we have to carry the burden of defending Europe as well as defending our interests in other parts of the world. The rise of China has only made this problem worse.

And fyi, it was Obama who started the pivot to the pacific. Its more bipartisan than you think.

>>1511617
You're not american and everything you post is a lie. Trump is weakening nato because he's putin's cocksleeve and nixon was the one who initiated detente with red china

>>1511614
Without looking it up I’m going to just say that kidnapping a leader would be reasonable grounds to invoke article 5.
Do you know how many NATO members besides the US have nukes?

>>1511622
>Trump is weakening NATO
>not Europeans who underfunded defense for ~20 years

>>1511632
so are you literally russian or do you just shill for them

>>1511633
>You want Europe to take defense seriously? To invest in large, modern, conventional armies? Literally Kremlin talking points!

>>1511632
NATO exists to prevent Euros from going back to killing each other like they were constantly doing before it existed.
It’s easier to sell people the idea of a global peace keeping force rather than admitting Euros are just that fucking awful.

>>1511638
nothing says taking european defense seriously like threatening to invade greenland

>>1511640
That’s not why NATO exists

>>1511645
It literally is
Euros caused both world wars. America had to something to force them to get along or else they’d just go back to killing each other.

>>1511645
you're talking to a russia shill, he will only lie

>>1511647
Literally not why NATO was formed

>>1511643
Trump never threatened to invade.

>>1511658
god you're esl