7 Big Mistakes in Trump’s Iran War, Ranked - Newsweek

They made a "big mistake," President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump could have been firing that accusation in any number of directions, given his ever-growing list of enemies.

But the target in this case was Iran, and the context Trump’s offer of "full economic cooperation in exchange for ending their nuclear program and support for terror."

The Iranian regime declined, as we know, and war has raged, on and off, since February 28.

To Trump’s critics, the war in Iran was itself a big mistake. He defends the conflict as, above all, a necessary campaign to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

This whole affair has been a cascade of mistakes from all parties, involved directly or not. Here, from bad to worse, are seven of the biggest made during the Iran war.

With Hezbollah mauled, Hamas obliterated, and Iraq’s militias hedging, Ansar Allah became the last fully functioning arm of Iran’s regional network—and promptly overworked it.

They resumed attacks on Saudi Arabia in July and by September had seized the coast beside Bab al-Mandeb, closing it to Saudi-linked shipping.

Overstretched in aid of a regime in decline, they now have the attention of Riyadh, Washington, and London at once.

Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, announced military support for the Saudis this week.

Having made themselves indispensable to Tehran, the Houthis then reportedly assured U.S. officials in Oman that American ships were safe—selling the same leverage twice.

The Houthis are causing trouble for everyone. And soon enough, themselves too.

China has been Iran’s longtime strategic partner, funding it through oil purchases as the only major buyer of its sanctioned crude. During the war it went even further.

Washington sanctioned Chinese entities in May over satellite imagery used against U.S. forces, a shipment of missile-propellant precursor arrived in April.

Reuters reported four days before the first strikes that Tehran was close to buying Chinese supersonic anti-ship missiles.

Roughly 40 percent of Chinese crude transits Hormuz. When Iran blockaded it, Iranian oil landings at Chinese ports fell from 1.74 million barrels a day in April to about 550,000 by July.

Beijing is now exposed to an Iranian intransigence it helped equip. Chickens back home to roost.

Moscow’s overriding interest is Trump’s reluctance to increase support for Ukraine. It risked that for marginal battlefield gain.

U.S. officials told CNN and The Washington Post in March that Russia was feeding Iran intelligence on American positions.

Britain’s defense secretary cited the "Putin's hidden hand"; the EU’s Kaja Kallas said Russia was helping Iran target and kill Americans.

Eighteen U.S. service members have died in the conflict.

The Kremlin has profited from higher oil prices, but its Iran move handed European allies a powerful argument to Trump for punishing Putin in Ukraine.

Gulf states have long privately wanted the Iranian threat to the region resolved, and long been reluctant to do anything about it.

Saudi Arabia’s defense minister warned Washington about the risks of not striking.

Then came a real opportunity—including repeated Iranian attacks on their own territory in Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE—and still they did not take it.

By May, Riyadh was denying airspace to the American operation to escort ships out of Hormuz, which was paused two days after it began.

Today the kingdom’s East-West pipeline is shut and Washington is promising to stand by it.

In fairness, the Gulf states are the ones in missile range. But they wanted the threat removed without being the front line, and that was never on offer.

This was a chance for NATO allies to rally around Trump and get into his favor, credit they could have cashed in against Russia.

They agree the Iranian threat needs dealing with, and they are absorbing the energy blowback from a conflict they might have helped end far sooner.

Instead, on March 19 the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan declared their readiness to contribute to safe passage through Hormuz.

Then within days, they clarified the terms: a multilateral mission after a ceasefire, not before.

Italy closed Sigonella to U.S. aircraft; France refused overflight; Germany declined warships.

Trump called NATO a "paper tiger" and pulled 5,000 troops out of Germany.

No European government was consulted before the war started, and reluctance to join on those terms was defensible.

But when it became clear this was a potentially pivotal campaign for the Middle East, with ramifications for the whole world, allies had a chance to step up. They demurred.

At best naivety, at worst arrogance. In the war’s opening days Trump said the plan projected four to five weeks.

By mid-March his national economic council director was relaying a Pentagon estimate of four to six weeks.

On March 26 the president told a Cabinet meeting the U.S. was way ahead of schedule. PolitiFact has since cataloged the shifting deadlines.

The war hits seven months next week, having cost $38 billion by August 1 and consumed a quarter of the U.S. Reaper drone fleet.

Trump’s newest date, offered from the U.N. podium, is after the midterms.

He has become a victim of his own timelines, and credibility spent is hard to earn back.

Iran may be causing pain and disruption in the energy markets—Hormuz traffic still runs about 90 percent below pre-war levels—but it could never truly match the military and economic power of the U.S. and Israel together.

It shot its own protesters in January, costing it every argument it had abroad and drawing a U.N. fact-finding mission finding last week of crimes against humanity.

It threatened to sink American warships while its own negotiators sat in Geneva. It walked away from an Omani-brokered framework that Muscat said put peace within reach on February 27.

Then it closed the strait, cutting its own trade with China by roughly three-quarters.

Its reward is financial ruin—84 percent inflation in August, a record-low rial this month—physical destruction, and a supreme leader no one has seen since he took office in March.

"You cannot fight forever," President Masoud Pezeshkian conceded in August.

Of everyone on this list, Iran has the least left to fight with.

What is missing from this list? Or what would you change? Have your say in the comments.