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It was Mike Tyson who famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
In terms of detonation, the largest military machine in human history has completely filled Iran and is destroying the country.
But the Iranians are finding ways to fight back, as U.S. officials admit, and those who envisioned a cakewalk are in for a rough ride.
EXILE IRANIAN WARNING SERVICE WAS ‘TOO PATIENTLY A THREAT WAITING TO GO ON’ IN AMERICA
The Trump administration’s disclosure that 140 US service members were injured in the initial attack that killed Ayatollah Ali Khameini and other top leaders highlights the enemy’s ability to inflict pain.
As President Donald Trump sends decidedly mixed messages about the timing of the war, the question is flying in the air: Is it worth winning?
There are others, including Republicans, who want Trump to declare victory and get out. He can boast that he thwarted the terrorist regime’s latest attempt to build a nuclear weapon.
Some carrying pictures of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, mourners approach coffins during a funeral for people killed during a US-Israeli military operation in Isfahan, Iran, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Payman Shahsanaei/ISNA via AP)
Yesterday, in fact, the president told Axios that the war will end “soon” because “there’s almost nothing left to target … It’s a little bit of this and that … Whenever I want it to end, it will end.”
Trump’s explanation: “We did more damage than we thought.”
A few days ago, the president said that the military campaign against Tehran will last four to six weeks.
More importantly than time, Trump had insisted that Iran must change the regime. He stated that he must approve the next leader of the country. However, when the Iranians anointed the ayatollah’s son, which Trump had deemed unacceptable, that did not happen.
GOP SENATORS SAY TRUMP’S STRIKES ‘DRAGGED DOWN’ IRAN BUT STRICT ON ATTACKS, NOT ‘ALL-OUT WAR’
The almost seamless pace of the US impeachment of Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro and the confiscation of that country’s oil may have given the Trump team a sense of overconfidence when it comes to Iran, which has a population of 90 million.
There is no mistaking that Trump, allied with Israel, has made other dire threats against the Iranian regime that has rejected a succession of American presidents since the 1979 hostage crisis.
“If Iran does anything to block the flow of oil in the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote, “it will be hit by the United States of America TWICE than it has been hit so far.”
But that’s exactly what the Iranians are doing, with reports that they are seizing the strait, the world’s largest oil shipping point, with landmines.
Among other things, according to officials and experts cited by the New York Times, Iranian-backed forces have attacked hotels used by American troops.
Thick smoke rises from an oil storage facility hit by a US-Israeli strike late Saturday in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)
There was a series of drones launched at a luxury hotel in the Iraqi city of Erbil.
An expert on Iran at Johns Hopkins University told this newspaper that the Iranians learned from the first attack on the US last June that the Pentagon does not have certain missiles and defense weapons that can stop drones.
Another Times story, examining the first 12 days, concluded that Trump and his advisers “misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict that Tehran sees as an existential threat.”
MICHAEL OREN: IRAN HAS WARNED AMERICA FOR 47 YEARS — TIME TO END IT
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, however, told reporters that “I can’t say we expected how they would react, but we knew it was possible. I think it was an indication of the state’s desperation.”
Apart from weapons, the war initiated by Trump has had a predictable financial impact, creating economic uncertainty around the world.
President Donald Trump confirmed that the US launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (White House via X Account/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Americans have been hit by rising gas prices and shrinking retirement plans. Market volatility and oil prices have soared, but this has clearly fueled feelings of anxiety.
In addition, unemployment has soared and tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, which predates the war but may also be linked to the Supreme Court ruling rejecting Trump’s tariffs.
America punched Iran in the mouth. But a theocratic dictatorship can declare a victory of some sort by simply surviving.
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Trump, for his part, could increase his party’s chances of rising in the midterms by bringing this fight to an early end.
That would also end a separate battle, a heated debate within the MAGA coalition between those who defend attacking Iran and those who believe he betrayed his base by abandoning his America First pledge to stay out of foreign wars.
