The President Is Giving a Master Class in What Not to Do

 

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David French

Opinion

The President Is Giving a Master Class in What Not to Do

 

May 28, 2026

David French

By David French

Opinion Columnist

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/opinion/trump-iran-war.html

 

At the moment, the United States is negotiating with a regime that President Trump claimed we had already changed, to open a strait that was supposed to be open last month, and to end a nuclear program that we said we had obliterated.

 

We’re doing all that as news continues to emerge that the war wasn’t as one-sided as we were told. In the opening days and weeks of the war, administration officials repeatedly trumpeted an uninterrupted string of American military successes while remaining largely mum about the effectiveness of Iranian attacks. The United States had “embarrassed and humiliated” Iran, Pete Hegseth said.

 

We could fly anywhere, strike anywhere, sink anything. The Iranian military was ravaged. Its navy was at the bottom of the ocean, its air force was decimated, and its missile forces were depleted. In the annals of military conflict, this was a historic rout.

 

Or so we were told.

 

It does not disrespect or diminish American skill and courage to note that the Iranian military was more effective — and American strikes perhaps less effective — than we were led to believe.

 

As more information filters out, the picture gets cloudier and cloudier. Not only was Iran able to immediately and decisively close the Strait of Hormuz, it’s now clear that the Iranian regime inflicted significant damage on American bases in the region and significant damage on oil and natural gas production around the Persian Gulf.

 

In addition, in spite of U.S. air superiority, the Islamic Republic was still able to damage or destroy at least 42 manned and unmanned American aircraft.

 

Compounding the problem, it’s an open question as to how much we damaged Iran’s missile program. As my colleagues in the newsroom reported this month, “The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors.”

 

In concrete terms, this means that Iran may retain about 70 percent of its missile launchers and prewar missile stocks, and 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. To put these numbers in perspective, the United States has depleted a substantial percentage of its own missile stocks to destroy a small fraction of Iran’s capabilities.

 

The Trump administration hasn’t accomplished any of its war aims. The Iranian regime is intact, perhaps even more hard-line than before the war now that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appears to exert greater control. There has been no unconditional surrender; Iran still possesses substantial stocks of highly enriched uranium; it still possesses a formidable missile arsenal; and it still supports terrorist proxies that wage war against Israel.

 

We have weakened the Iranian military, but the regime is unbeaten and unbowed. If anything, its regional and global position may even be stronger than it was before the war. Before the war, Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz was theoretical. Now it’s actual. And we don’t seem to possess a plan — or the will — to open it once again.

 

Why did this happen? Why did America find itself in a situation in which our military performed its assigned mission with competence and courage, but without achieving (at least so far) the desired strategic effect?

 

The answer is found in leadership, history and civics — yes, civics.

 

Let’s start with leadership. In April, Eliot Cohen, the founder of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies’ strategic studies program and a former government official, published a piece in The Atlantic with a perfect title: “Lions Led by Donkeys.” The title refers to a popular (although frankly often unfair) description of the First World War, when millions of lives were lost in horrific trench warfare, and leaders seemed to lack the imagination to break the stalemate.

 

In this case, the phrase is a perfect representation of what happens when you put incompetent and corrupt people in charge of dangerous and difficult military operations.

 

In fact, Trump’s performance as commander in chief is a perfect illustration of why he was never an acceptable choice for president. It’s clear that Trump had a wildly unrealistic Plan A and no viable Plan B. He has repeatedly compared Iran to Venezuela.

 

It seems that he thought that a jihadist regime that endured hundreds of thousands of casualties during the Iran-Iraq war, has persisted with its weapons development programs in the face of crippling sanctions, industrial sabotage and targeted assassinations, and is a theocracy full of people willing to die for their beliefs would behave exactly like a corrupt South American regime that shares none of those characteristics.

 

As a result, when Iran did not fold after the successful decapitation strike against the nation’s leadership, Trump had no plan beyond “keep bombing,” at least for a little while.

 

But it’s not just Trump. It’s no coincidence that the Iran war is going far worse than the fight against ISIS that started under Barack Obama and culminated during Trump’s first term. The military, along with our allies from the region and across the globe, destroyed the ISIS caliphate and ended its reign of terror in the Middle East. At that time, however, the Trump administration was staffed with professionals, not toadies and lackeys.

 

It turns out that there really is a difference between a military led by James Mattis and a military led by Pete Hegseth. One is among our most militarily astute and politically deft battlefield commanders; the other is a former Fox News host who possesses limited military experience and seems to think that defeating wokeness (whatever that means) is a principal part of his job.

 

But his bench presses are genuinely impressive. I’ll give him that.

 

Now, on to history. In March, I spoke with Gen. Stanley McChrystal about the war up to that point, and he listed “three great seductions” that have led America astray. As far as we know, the first two seductions, covert action and surgical special operations raids, aren’t as relevant to the war in Iran, which featured large-scale air and naval combat.

 

The third seduction, air power, remains relevant. With every new development of aerial technology, the cry goes out: Now bombing really can win a war! As McChrystal notes, we’ve made this mistake again and again.

 

In World War II, we said that “the bomber will always get through” and believed that daylight strategic bombing would break the back of Hitler’s Germany. Strategic bombing was important, no doubt, but it took millions of men fighting in the mud to finally finish off the Nazi regime.

 

One could argue that air power did finish off the war in Japan, of course, but that was through the use of weapons we pray that humanity never uses again.

 

In Vietnam, aerial campaigns such as Rolling Thunder were designed to achieve decisive results, but they did not win the war. Even relatively successful campaigns, such as the 1972 Christmas bombings that forced North Vietnam back to the negotiating table, didn’t end the war on terms favorable to the United States and its allies.

 

And in Operation Iraqi Freedom, we hoped the initial “shock and awe” would achieve greater results, but in the end it took years of grinding ground combat to first depose Saddam Hussein and then to finally vanquish Al Qaeda in Iraq. Then, when ISIS arose, it took a combination of allied air power and Iraqi soldiers on the ground to beat ISIS.

 

Why did we think that this time things would be different? Especially when drones are changing warfare in a way that we are only just beginning to understand?

 

Finally, let’s deal with the most exciting subject of all — civics. As I’ve said time and again, the Constitution’s requirement that Congress declare war is no mere technicality. It reflects a clear understanding of how democracies should wage war, both for the benefit of the democracy and for the good of the war effort.

 

The process of seeking congressional support can stress-test the war plan, and if the case for the war can’t survive skeptical questioning, then the war should not be fought. In the absence of an extreme emergency that requires an immediate response, the decision is simply too consequential to be left in the hands of one person.

 

Even then (such as after Pearl Harbor or 9/11), a president should immediately seek congressional authorization for a sustained military response.

 

There’s another reason for congressional approval. When democratic governments wage wars with public support, they can demonstrate extraordinary resolve and staying power. In the absence of that support, even a matter as temporary as higher gas prices can lead to cries for peace.

 

The result is an asymmetric commitment, with the regime willing to bear any burden and pay any price (including with the lives of its citizens) to maintain its power and Americans unwilling to bear much burden at all. And why should they? No one asked them to approve the expense in blood and treasure, nor has anyone explained why it’s necessary.

 

It is not the public’s fault if it doesn’t support a war when a president barely even tries to make the case for it.

 

The beating heart of the American experiment is the social contract theory of government, the idea that the leader derives his legitimacy not by divine right, but through the will of the people. That is not to say that the people are always right when they approve of a war, but when the elected representatives vote to send men and women into combat, a clear message is sent: We are in this together.

 

I do not for a minute think the military is perfect. I’m deeply grieved, for example, by the mistaken strike on an Iranian elementary school that took so many lives at the onset of this war. As a former JAG officer, I know very well that some soldiers and some commanders can go rogue and commit atrocities against soldiers and civilians alike. I didn’t want to believe the reports from Abu Ghraib, for example, until I saw the pictures that removed all doubt.

 

It’s hard, however, to blame the military for the present debacle. As near as we can tell, it has performed its mission with extreme skill. Its rescue of two downed crewmen deep in Iran was an extraordinary display of courage and skill (as was the special operations mission that snatched Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela).

 

Nor can we presume that military leaders failed to warn Trump that Iran would respond exactly as it did. In fact, there’s reporting that suggests that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, did warn Trump that Iran would try to close the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump brushed it off.

 

One of the realities of military life is that soldiers are law and honor-bound to refuse unlawful orders, but they have no grounds for refusing stupid orders.

 

I’m reminded of Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” once a staple of high-school English classes. While Americans in the Iran war have suffered far fewer casualties than the British cavalry in the Battle of Balaklava in 1854, the lessons are still the same.

 

The second stanza tells the tale:

 

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

 

Those words, “Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die,” haunt me. Throughout military history, men and women have saluted, mounted their horses or vehicles, and done their duty, even when their leaders failed them.

 

And so it is today. The commander in chief has blundered, and we are still counting the cost.