America Has Lost the Iran War

When United States President Donald Trump said he would suspend bombing Iran on April 7, he said the U.S. had “already met and exceeded all military objectives.” He told Agence France-Presse the same day: “Total and complete victory. 100 percent. No question about it.”

Has the U.S. really achieved “total and complete victory”? While much of the available evidence is anonymous sources and leaks to individual papers uncorroborated by official data, the U.S. government has, in general, not disputed this evidence. And it doesn’t look good.

Goals

President Trump has given varying answers of what America’s main goals are. The three main ones are: 1) weaken the Iranian government so its people can overthrow it; 2) permanently end Iran’s nuclear program; and 3) neuter Iran so it can never again pose a threat to American interests.

The first goal was one reason President Trump assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on day one of the war. This was after Iran’s January protests and subsequent massacre. Both President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly said in the early days of the war that they hoped the Iranian people would take advantage of the chaos and overthrow the Islamic Republic.

This will not happen anytime soon. With Khamenei’s death, Iran’s clerics have lost influence. The civilian government led by President Masoud Pezeshkian has been clearly sidelined throughout the war. But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s main military, remains largely intact and has taken over the government. It reportedly pressured Iran’s Assembly of Experts to choose as Khamenei’s successor his son Mojtaba. President Trump seemed to accept this reality fairly early in the war.

What about the other goals?

Nuclear Weapons

On February 18—10 days before the war started—President Trump outlined what victory meant: “We’re looking for a total and complete victory. Again, you know what that victory is: no nuclear weapon.”

Unlike the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, the 2026 bombing campaign focused mainly on Iran’s conventional military infrastructure rather than the nuclear sites. Reuters reported May 4 that the war hasn’t altered the U.S.’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear breakout time. Citing “sources familiar with the matter,” Reuters claimed “the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer,” meaning Iran could still create a nuclear weapon within six months to a year.

Western intelligence agencies estimate that most of Iran’s enriched material is located in the rubble of the nuclear sites struck last year. Media reports suggested President Trump was seriously considering sending a commando team to extract the material and bring it back to the U.S. Such a move would have been incredibly risky. But it was probably the least the U.S. could have done to see the enriched material leave Iranian possession.

Military Capacity

Having enriched nuclear material is one thing. A payload system is another. Iran also had an advanced ballistic missile program. Beyond that, Iran also had a formidable navy, one of the world’s most battle-tested arsenals of drones and a proxy empire of terrorist militias that allowed Iran to wage war throughout the Middle East and beyond while not getting directly involved. Aside from causing problems for Israel and the Arab world, Iran has used these tools to attack Europe and the U.S. One of the main aims of this war was to degrade Iran’s military capabilities so it could no longer pose a threat to regional and world stability.

What do Iran’s weapons stockpiles look like?

cnn has published several reports citing anonymous U.S. authorities who suggest Iran has held back using much of its arsenal. It reported on April 2 that Iran had preserved about 50 percent of its attack drone capability. What capabilities Iran has lost, it is rebuilding—fast. A May 21 cnn report, citing a “U.S. official,” claimed Iran could “fully reconstitute its drone attack capability in as soon as six months.” The official stated: “The Iranians have exceeded all timelines the [U.S. Intelligence Community] had for reconstitution.” cnn’s sources also gave a similar picture for Iran’s ballistic missile program; an Intelligence Community report claimed about two thirds of Iran’s missile launchers have survived U.S. strikes, along with a large amount of the ballistic missiles themselves.

As cnn’s reporting suggests, many of the missile sites targeted are underground; the U.S. merely struck their entrances. Iran has apparently removed the debris and made the systems operational again. Out of 69 tunnel entrances the U.S. and Israel struck during the war, cnn estimates as of May 31 that 50 have been unblocked.

Costs

As of May, the U.S. Department of War claims the Iran war has cost the government $29 billion—a request from Secretary Pete Hegseth for an additional $200 billion on March 18, halfway through the war, notwithstanding. Many analysts estimate the costs could be much higher.

One of the few studies that gives a glimpse into the actual costs of the war focuses not on money but munitions. On April 21, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (csis) think tank published its estimation of how much the Iran war has drained the U.S. supply of important missile stocks. Its conclusions are shocking:

• Of an estimated prewar inventory of 3,100 Tomahawk missiles, the U.S. has used over 1,000.
• America’s estimated prewar stock of Patriot missiles was 2,330; csis estimated the U.S. has used between 1,060 and 1,430, roughly half.
• The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (thaad) missile is the only American system intended to intercept targets outside and inside the atmosphere. Of the U.S.’s estimated prewar stock of 360 thaad missiles, csis estimates the U.S. has used between 190 and 290.
• The war also heavily drained the stocks of jassm, PrSM, SM-3 and SM-6 missiles. In PrSM’s case, the U.S. had an approximate prewar stock of 90 and has used an estimated 40 to 70 in the war.

These are some of America’s most critical defense systems. Some of these stocks have been depleted by over half. csis estimates that it would take the U.S. between 4 and 5 years to replenish these stocks. The War Department this year contracted Lockheed Martin and rtx to dramatically increase the production of some of these munitions. But even if those orders are promptly filled, what won’t be undone is the track record for how quickly these stocks depleted during a six-week war the U.S. couldn’t even win.

There are rumblings that China may invade Taiwan this year. One of the reasons is because of the U.S.’s depleted munitions stocks. If China invaded, the U.S. couldn’t afford to send Taiwan any meaningful defense.

This is just one example. Add to that Russia’s escapades in Eastern Europe and many other potential flashpoints around the world involving dictators and madmen sensing weakness. Criminals are emboldened when they know the global policeman has no more bullets.

Morale

It’s not only America’s weapons stockpiles that have taken a hit. So has public morale. An April 24–28 Washington Post-abc News-Ipsos poll estimates 61 percent of U.S. adults think the war with Iran was a mistake. To be fair, the same poll suggested 79 percent of Republicans surveyed thought the war was the right decision. But the 61 percent statistic is about the same as what polling said of the Iraq War in 2006, three years after it started, and the Vietnam War in 1971, over 15 years after that war started and after 50,000 casualties.

The Iran war saw six American casualties in six weeks. Nothing should downplay the sacrifice of those six or of any injured servicemen, but more people are murdered in America’s big cities over the same time period.

There have been no boots on the ground in this conflict. Leaks to media suggest President Trump was considering the commando raid for the nuclear material or boots on the ground to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s most important oil transit point. None of these ever happened, yet the morale of most Americans is at the same level it was after 15 years and 50,000 casualties in Vietnam.

All of these statistics together must have made an impression on Iranians. Iran must know all it has to do is drag out ceasefire negotiations as long as possible, letting every flare-up in the Strait of Hormuz twist the screws on public opinion more and more. Iran’s leadership knows America will never attempt adventurism like this again. Iran will have a freer hand after the war concludes than it did before the war started.

The Iran war should have been a massive American victory. Instead, it is setting up to be a massive curse on America.

Why?

Causes

America has the most powerful military the world has ever seen. Its military decisively won a world war on two fronts over 80 years ago. While other countries had their strength drained after World War ii, America came out a superpower. This July, Americans will celebrate that unrivaled heritage of martial prowess and valor.

This power wasn’t the result of any inherent superiority of the American way, savvy geopolitical prowess or “good ol’ fashioned Yankee ingenuity.” As late theologian Herbert W. Armstrong proved in his masterwork The United States and Britain in Prophecy (request your free copy), God gave America its success. This was because of promises God made thousands of years ago to America’s forefather, the patriarch Abraham. Genesis 12 records God’s promise to Abraham: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee …” (verses 2-3).

Later, when Abraham’s progeny became the ancient nation of Israel, God elaborated on these blessings: “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them … ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you …” (Leviticus 26:3, 7-9).

America saw these kinds of victories from the Revolutionary War to World War ii. These blessings, recorded thousands of years ago, are the cause. Even today, minor episodes like this year’s capture of Venezuela’s Maduro show what America is capable of.

A related prophecy is in Micah 5: “And the remnant of Jacob [the Israelites—America today] shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver” (verse 8).

Mr. Armstrong wrote in The United States and Britain in Prophecy:

Again, this symbolism describes the last generation of Israel as a great power—as a lion among the other nations of the Earth.

“Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off” (verse 9). They were cut off from the beginning of God’s birthright blessing on America and Britain starting about 1803, through the First World War, the Second World War, until the turning point of the Korean War at the end of 1950.

Since that time, however, these blessings are surely being taken away—and neither America nor Britain has come out on top in any major skirmish since that time!

1950 was a long time ago.

Curses

God also promised curses for disobedience to His ways. “But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgements, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I will also do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror …” (Leviticus 26:14-16). Iran is the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism. It has been directly and indirectly responsible for thousands of American deaths. So America decided to war against Iran—but it couldn’t win.

“And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain …” (verses 19-20).

Mr. Armstrong elaborated:

Today even little nations dare to insult, trample on, or burn the United States flag—and the United States, still having power, does no more than issue a weak protest! What’s happened to the pride of our power?

We have already lost it! God said, “I will break the pride of your power!” And He did!

Look at how much strength America spent in Iran. Look at how little that achieved. Look at how quickly public morale collapsed.

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, Mr. Armstrong wrote in the Plain Truth magazine,

Unless or until the United States as a whole repents and returns to what has become a hollow slogan on its dollars: “In God we trust,” the United States of America has won its last war!

I said that when we failed to win in Korea! … I say it again, now that the United States government endorsed this Cuban fiasco—its president gave the “go ahead”—and God, the God America has deserted, gave it its most humiliating defeat! What does the Cuban debacle mean?

It means, Mr. and Mrs. United states, that the handwriting is on your wall!

Look at where we have come since then. The results of the Iran war are the curses of Leviticus 26 in action—out in the open for everyone to see.

America leads the world in global firepower. It also leads the world in sin. Vices such as pornography, gambling, graphic violence and sexuality in entertainment dominate American culture. Adultery and abortion—murder of unborn children—are commonly accepted. It doesn’t take much scrutiny to discern that America is not right with God.

As biblical prophecy and The United States and Britain in Prophecy explain, if America doesn’t repent of its sins, even worse tribulation is coming.

But this doesn’t mean every American has to be cursed. Jeremiah 17:7-8 read: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” God’s promises apply to individuals as well as nations.

Mr. Armstrong concluded his book:

But if you—you now reading this, you as an individual—will be corrected, voluntarily, before God lets this indescribably horrendous chastening strike; if you come to real repentance, realizing how terribly wrong you have been; if you can see yourself as you really are—as a rebellious wrong, evil person; and if you can surrender to the loving, all-merciful, yet all-powerful God—and make it an unconditional surrender, coming to Almighty God through the living Jesus Christ as personal Savior—then no plague shall come near you! (Psalm 91:8-11), but you shall be accounted worthy to escape all these frightful things and to stand before Christ at His return (Luke 21:35-36).

The Iran fiasco shows these curses still hang over America. They are getting stronger, and they will not end soon. God promises to protect those individuals who, even if they live in cursed nations, commit their ways to Him and trust Him. But He compels every individual to choose—and as Mr. Armstrong wrote, “to neglect doing so is to have made the wrong decision!”

To learn more, request a free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.