RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Good Morning America ShopGMA Interest Successfully Added We'll notify you here with news about Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Off On Stream on Trump used to say he saw a quick end to his Iran war, but 6 months later he claims he's in no hurry President Donald Trump marks an awkward moment in his second White House term as the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran reaches the six-month mark
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump arrives at an awkward moment for his presidency on Friday as the U.S.-Israel war against Iran reaches the six-month mark, a notable milestone for a conflict that the Republican leader repeatedly assured Americans would be a “little excursion” lasting a matter of weeks.
The war isn't over, though Trump claims that through bombs and blockade, he has already devastated Iran’s leadership , military and economy .
And this week his administration said it would turn its focus to increasing economic pressure — rather than military action — to try to finish off Iran. The shifting strategy centers on threats to punish any country or entity that continues to conduct business with Tehran .
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 undermine U.S. military readiness in other parts of the globe.
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 “not in a hurry” to get Iran back to the negotiating table , and he continues making the case that the Islamic Republic's leadership is on the ropes.
“They’re not paying their troops. They’re in deep trouble. They have very little capacity,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “We don’t want to speak to them. We’re not looking to meet or anything,” he said.
It's unclear how — or if — Trump will address the six-month anniversary of a conflict that has already cost the United States more than $37.5 billion and done damage to his popularity ahead of critical November elections for his party. The president is spending Friday in Houston, where he'll honor the Artemis II NASA crew for their 10-day mission around the moon earlier this year.
On its face, the moment is complicated for the “America First” leader who fiercely criticized his White House predecessors for wasting American taxpayer money and U.S. troops' lives in Middle East conflicts and vowed on the campaign trail to keep the military out of “endless wars.”
But Trump has bristled at suggestions that this war — in which no American troops have deployed into Iran — can be compared with the yearslong wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which more than 7,000 Americans were killed.
His Republican predecessor, President George W. Bush , was widely mocked for a 2003 speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln beneath a White House-produced banner that read “Mission Accomplished.” 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.
Trump’s 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 “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 2026.” 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 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , who was killed in an Israeli strike in the opening salvos of the war.
Trump has consistently emphasized that the U.S. and Israel campaign has been devastating for Iran's navy and air force. Iranian officials have said the country has suffered $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 Khamenei .
But Iran has found leverage through its own strikes in the critical Strait of Hormuz , where relatively few vessels carrying oil and liquefied natural gas are risking passage. Trump again declared Thursday that the “Strait of Hormuz is open,” 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.
Mediators Qatar and Pakistan continue to press for a diplomatic off-ramp from 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.
But in Washington, Trump has shown little interest in getting back to the preliminary deal reached in June that aimed to reopen the strait and launch talks about Iran’s nuclear program. That deal fell apart within weeks after Iran started attacking ships.
At the same time, Trump says the U.S. effort to economically choke off Tehran is 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.
“We have control and we have the blockade,” Trump said. "Iran is not getting anything. Nothing is going through.”
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.
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 — which has spent decades adapting to international economic sanctions — will produce the political outcome he wants.
Indeed, Iran’s 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.
But Tehran ...
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