WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0arrives at an awkward moment for his presidency on Friday as the U.S.-Israel\u00a0war against Iran\u00a0reaches\u00a0the six-month mark,\u00a0a notable milestone for a conflict that the Republican leader repeatedly assured Americans would be a\u00a0\u201clittle excursion\u201d\u00a0lasting a matter of weeks.<\/p>\n
The war isn’t over, though Trump claims that through bombs and blockade, he has already devastated\u00a0Iran\u2019s leadership, military\u00a0and economy.<\/p>\n
And this week his administration said it would turn its focus to\u00a0increasing economic pressure\u00a0\u2014 rather than military action \u2014 to try to finish off Iran. The shifting strategy centers on threats to punish any country or entity that continues to\u00a0conduct business with Tehran.<\/p>\n
The turn to using sanctions as the cudgel of choice comes as the administration weighs diminished munitions stockpiles after months of war, sparking concerns that the prolonged conflict could\u00a0undermine U.S. military readiness in other parts of the globe.<\/p>\n
As the conflict grinds on, Trump’s talk of finding a quick end to the war also appears to be fading. He stressed this week that he’s\u00a0\u201cnot in a hurry\u201d\u00a0to get Iran\u00a0back to the negotiating table, and he continues making the case that the\u00a0Islamic Republic’s leadership is on the ropes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not paying their troops. They\u2019re in deep trouble. They have very little capacity,\u201d Trump told reporters Thursday. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to speak to them. We\u2019re not looking to meet or anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It’s unclear how \u2014 or if \u2014 Trump will address the six-month anniversary of a conflict that has already cost the United States\u00a0more than $37.5 billion\u00a0and\u00a0done damage to his popularity\u00a0ahead of critical November elections for his party. The president is spending Friday in Houston, where he’ll honor the\u00a0Artemis II\u00a0NASA crew for their 10-day mission around the moon earlier this year.<\/p>\n
On its face, the moment is complicated for the \u201cAmerica First\u201d leader who fiercely criticized his White House predecessors for wasting American taxpayer money and U.S. troops’ lives in Middle East conflicts and\u00a0vowed\u00a0on the campaign trail to keep the military out of \u201cendless wars.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Trump has bristled at suggestions that this war \u2014 in which no American troops have deployed into Iran \u2014 can be compared with the yearslong wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which more than 7,000 Americans were killed.<\/p>\n
His Republican predecessor, President\u00a0George W. Bush, was widely mocked for a 2003 speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln beneath a White House-produced banner that read \u201cMission Accomplished.\u201d It came to symbolize a premature declaration of victory for the Iraq War, which would go on for nearly nine more years. More than two decades later, there are still U.S. troops stationed in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s war has stretched on far longer than he told Americans it would. It didn’t stop him from sharing a social media post this week declaring \u201cMISSION ACCOMPLISHED 2026.\u201d The AI-generated image features Trump against a backdrop of U.S. fighter jets, a warship and American flags above smaller images of Bush and former Iranian Supreme Leader\u00a0Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,\u00a0who was killed in an Israeli strike\u00a0in the opening salvos of the war.<\/p>\n
Trump has consistently emphasized that the U.S. and Israel campaign\u00a0has been devastating\u00a0for Iran’s navy and air force. Iranian officials have said the\u00a0country has suffered\u00a0$270 billion in direct and indirect damage. Israeli military strikes in the first weeks of the war wiped out much of the theocratic government’s leadership structure, including\u00a0Khamenei.<\/p>\n
But Iran has found leverage through its own strikes in the critical\u00a0Strait of Hormuz, where relatively few vessels carrying oil and liquefied natural gas are risking passage. Trump again declared Thursday that the \u201cStrait of Hormuz is open,\u201d saying 24 vessels passed through a day earlier. That’s a fraction of the roughly 130 vessels that passed through the vital waterway daily before the war began.<\/p>\n
Mediators Qatar and Pakistan\u00a0continue to press for a diplomatic off-ramp\u00a0from the two sides. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, was in Tehran on Thursday to discuss a proposed plan between Iran and Oman to boost traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
But in Washington, Trump has shown little interest in getting back to the\u00a0preliminary deal reached in June\u00a0that aimed to reopen the strait and launch talks about Iran\u2019s nuclear program. That deal fell apart within weeks after Iran started attacking ships.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Trump says the U.S. effort to\u00a0economically choke off Tehran\u00a0is working, with a U.S. naval blockade preventing Iranian oil from making it to market as the trickle of vessels carrying oil from other Gulf nations pass through.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have control and we have the blockade,\u201d Trump said. “Iran is not getting anything. Nothing is going through.\u201d<\/p>\n
There’s no doubt that the strikes combined with decades of international sanctions have battered Iran, said Aarathi Krishnan, a geopolitical risk analyst at RAKSHA Intelligence Future.<\/p>\n
But as Trump tries to turn to a new chapter in the war, Krishnan argues the Republican may be misguided in concluding that more pressure on Tehran \u2014 which has spent decades adapting to international economic sanctions \u2014 will produce the political outcome he wants.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Iran\u2019s economy in the run-up to the start of the war was mired in surging inflation, according to the International Monetary Fund. National income per person had fallen from about $8,000 in 2012 to $5,000 in 2024, according to World Bank data.<\/p>\n
But Tehran has also shown resilience, selling discounted oil and establishing opaque shipping and financial networks, Krishnan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis administration has completely underestimated the Iranian resolve,\u201d Krishnan said. \u201cThis is not new to the Iranian regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richard Goldberg, who served as a senior adviser on Iran at the National Security Council during Trump’s first White House term, argues that Iran now finds itself in \u201cuncharted waters\u201d if the administration follows through with a truly biting campaign to pressure Iranian trade partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we should be seeing is an attempt to seal off every escape hatch the regime has left,\u201d said Goldberg, who is now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank. \u201cUse the economic power of the United States to layer a naval blockade with an air and land embargo while dropping the hammer on anyone who gives the regime access to hard currency \u2014 whether that\u2019s in the Middle East, China or even Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it remains to be seen how far the administration is willing to go.<\/p>\n
Treasury Secretary\u00a0Scott Bessent\u00a0this week unveiled a campaign the White House calls \u201cOperation Economic Outcast,\u201d but\u00a0only issued warnings to nations\u00a0to cut trade and has yet to announce any secondary sanctions. Bessent told reporters the administration wanted countries to have a chance to shift away from Iran before it was too late \u2014 and acknowledged there was economic risk to the U.S., too, in moving ahead.<\/p>\n
The Treasury Department announced on Friday that it was taking steps that could lead to eventually severing\u00a0Banque Misr, Egypt\u2019s second-largest bank,\u00a0from the U.S. financial system. The department accused the bank of serving as an economic lifeline to Tehran\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
China, which is Iran’s biggest trade partner and oil buyer, responded earlier this week to the Trump administration’s broad threats of going after countries and firms that still do trade with Iran by expressing its opposition to\u00a0\u201cillegal unilateral sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pressed Thursday about why he wasn’t already sanctioning Chinese banks, Trump offered a cryptic response.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho said I\u2019m not? You don\u2019t know if I\u2019m doing it,\u201d Trump said. “I don\u2019t have to announce everything, do I?\u201d<\/p>\n
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