Trump is hopelessly confused by his own war ...Middle East

Donald Trump – a man who spent most of the last year styling himself as the “President of Peace” – ended a war on Monday, at least for an hour or two.

After saying that his war on Iran would continue for at least four to five weeks (and with members of his cabinet saying it would take even longer), Trump appeared to abruptly change course, telling a CBS News journalist that “the war is very complete, pretty much”, and was running well ahead of his timetable.

Global markets, desperate for good news, seized upon the announcement. US stock markets, which had plummeted over the last week, ended the day somewhat up. US oil prices, which had briefly spiked above $100 (£74) a barrel, dropped back down to under $90 (£67). Perhaps, traders hoped, a global energy crisis might be avoided, and things might get back to whatever counts as “normal” these days.

Trump’s statement was hard to reconcile with any of his myriad stated goals for this war. The US can claim that Iran’s nuclear capability has been wiped out, but he claimed just last summer that he’d successfully set that programme back by decades with his bombing strikes on its enrichment facilities then. His statements on this area simply don’t mean very much, as they are contradicted by his actions.

The war’s impact on Iran’s nuclear programme is, at least, ambiguous. Other apparent policy goals have simply not been achieved yet. After killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the opening weekend of his war, Trump insisted that he must have a say in choosing whoever succeeded him as supreme leader. Iran has openly defied him on that, appointing Khamenei’s hardliner son, Mojtaba, to the role. While the new ayatollah lives and fulfils that role, Trump has obviously not got his way on this.

Similarly, Trump insisted that Iran would have to offer him an “unconditional surrender” before he would end this war. It has done nothing of the sort, and there are no signs that one is imminent. Strike up another failure. Trump said he wanted the people of Iran to rise up and overthrow their regime – and there have been no efforts to do so since his war began.

Make no mistake, the US and Iran have killed many of Iran’s senior leaders and destroyed or damaged several military facilities. But when Trump spoke on Monday, he had done nothing to topple the regime or end its ability to act as a major regional power and sponsor of terror. Iran’s ongoing ability to all but halt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz – holding the world economy hostage – demonstrated that clearly.

Why, then, were markets so keen to believe Trump when he said the war was “very complete”? Partly it is simply that it is what almost everyone wants to be true. Around 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes through the strait, and production relies on being able to ship oil out. If it is not reopened soon, global supply issues will take months to resolve and will be on a scale much larger even than the crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trump has a history of backing down when economic chaos looms. His indecisiveness over tariffs led to the coining of the famous TACO acronym, short for Trump Always Chickens Out. The world is betting that Trump doesn’t have the stomach for a protracted war, and especially not for weathering its consequences. In turn, it is hoping Iran will back down if Trump does, and allow ships to pass once more.

That all seems to fit with Trump’s short attention span. He likes his wars quick and flashy, with similarly showy results. If Iran isn’t going to give him those, he might simply turn his attention elsewhere. He is already talking about enacting a “friendly takeover” – quite the new euphemism for regime change – in Cuba.

Sadly for the traders hoping Trump’s “very complete” statement meant there was a plan to back out of the conflict, the President appeared to contradict himself at a bizarre press conference just a few hours later.

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Trump was asked why he had said the war was almost over when his Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, had said it was just beginning, and answered that it could be “both”. He appeared to confuse Iran’s regime with its people when asked about his promises to support the latter when they tried to rise up earlier this year, saying they had been “very menacing”. He said the US hadn’t “won enough” yet for the war to be over.

Shortly afterwards, Trump posted a series of threats to Iran, demanding it reopen the Strait of Hormuz immediately or else he would hit the country “TWENTY TIMES HARDER”, taking out “easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to be built back, as a Nation” – a fundamental misunderstanding of a regime that just weeks ago turned its guns against its own unarmed people.

Trump, on some level, clearly wants this war to be over. He also wants to win it. What is increasingly apparent is that he has no real idea how to accomplish either.

Hence then, the article about trump is hopelessly confused by his own war was published today ( Tuesday 10/03/2026 - 03:45 PM ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

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