By SAMUEL PRESCOTT

George W. Bush (the younger) famously declared “Mission Accomplished” after our initial invasion of Iraq. He was wrong to do so. In fact, that mission was just beginning.

President Trump promised the Iranian people that “help is on its way” after as many as 40,000 of them had been slaughtered by the Iranian regime.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-tells-iranians-keep-protesting-says-help-is-its-way-2026-01-13/. Trump was wrong to do so. Help was not coming. A bloody, inept, misadventure was.

The costs of this misadventure are, at one level,  numbing. https://www.npr.org/2026/06/17/nx-s1-5860739/iran-war-cost-oil-military-trade. So far, more than $113 billion (that is, one hundred thirteen thousand million dollars) in direct costs to ordinary Americans, plus $29 billion to the U.S. Military, plus billions more sustained in damage to a dozen plus U.S. bases and aircraft, along with the need to replenish severely depleted U.S. weaponry.

On another level, those costs are irreversible. Thirteen Americans,  3,800 Lebanese, 60 Israeli, and 3,300 Iranians dead  - including more than 150 Iranian schoolchildren, mistakenly killed by a US Tomahawk missile, https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/u-s-responsible-for-killing-over-100-children-in-iran-school-attack/, for which we have yet to even express regret. An already virtually non-existent trust mark with NATO and the Gulf states weakened further. And an Iran that has used this carnage to continue asphyxiating its own population while establishing de facto control over 20% of the world’s oil supply.

If the Iran war had been a good faith effort to meet coherent strategic goals, this very high price might have been worth paying.  But Trump’s goals were (and are) not coherent. They change depending on the day of the week.

We were doing this to pre-empt an imminent Iranian strike on us. Well, no. It was actually to effectuate regime change. Until it was to instead to open the Strait of Hormuz (after we closed it). Plus – at various times – to assure that Iran did not have the military capability to threaten its neighbors. Or ever have a nuclear weapon.

Except that by killing senior Iranians (and various members of their families) we have virtually guaranteed that Iran will go nuclear – and quickly. Why? Because that is now – quite obviously - their only chance of survival. How do I know this? Because I have a pulse. And you do, too. Think North Korea. It only exists because of its nuclear arsenal. Along with – arguably – the organized crime state that is Putin’s Rusia. So, explain to me again how the Iranian regime will surrender its only chance of surviving in exchange for Trump’s promises about – well, anything.

This nuclear fail is by far the deadliest one, which we will soon have to live with for as long as we remain living. What of Trump’s other on again, off again goals? Iran is likely to emerge from this war more powerful, in key ways, than it was before. More powerful because we are now offering the Iranian regime some $300 billion in war reparations, mislabeled as “economic development,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2026/06/18/trump-again-denies-us-is-providing-iran-with-300-billion-for-reconstruction-fund/, which it will use to cement itself in place for the foreseeable future. More powerful because Iran has survived our chaotic assault. More powerful because Iran has now demonstrated its control over the Strait of Hormuz. And more powerful because Iran has fully revealed our deepest fault line. That is, a president whose goals are immediate term goal is to keep daily stock market prices up and prices at the pump down. Squaring the circle on Trump’s shift from threatening, on the one hand,  to destroy Iranian civilization and, on the other, to ending the war to avoid an “ international economic catastrophe.”  Even if that means Iran keeps ballistic missiles, continues its nuclear program. https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-herbert-hoover-presidency-iran-missiles/story?id=133979678, and  - mark my words – forces ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz to pay millions for the privilege. Regime change, degrading Iran’s ability threaten its neighbors, or denying Iran a nuclear weapon be damned. Because, after all, the midterms are coming.

If Iran was Venezuela Trump would (I believe) have immediately thrown the Iranian people under in return for ready access to Iranian oil.  But luck is not a plan and Iran is not Venezuela. Highlighting for us (and the rest of the world) how a wholly reactive octogenarian real estate developer from Manhattan chases misguided notions of grandiosity to the detriment of all. Including, first and foremost, this country. Plus Israel which, having traded bipartisan US support for a Trumpian alliance, wrongly believed it was in bed with a man who actually sleeps alone.

Even Biden - in his apparent senility – could probably have done better. He almost certainly could not have done worse.