Trump’s flailing over how to extricate himself from the Iran fiasco gets ever more desperate. It would be comical (and indeed late night talk show hosts are ridiculing him on this) if it did not have such dire consequences. Trump keeps switching from saying that a peace deal with Iran is imminent and will be signed in a matter of days and that they have pretty much agreed to all his demands (which the Iranians stoutly deny) to then threatening to start bombing, to then calling it off (sometimes all within one day) saying that the Iranians have agreed to a deal on his terms, which they deny again.

In the latest chaotic reversals, he seemed outraged that the Iranian drones had shot down a US helicopter and in retaliation he started bombing again.

The United States launched a second round of airstrikes on Iran into Thursday morning after President Donald Trump warned that Tehran would “pay the price” for stalled negotiations, and Iran responded with strikes targeting Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
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The U.S. Central Command said it had “completed” its latest round of airstrikes just before sunrise in Iran. The military command said the strikes came “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression” and targeted “Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites.” It did not elaborate on the damage done by the strikes, which it said were carried out by the U.S. Air Force, Marines and Navy.
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Iran responded by launching strikes on Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, and Kuwait closed its airspace as its air defenses fought off the attack. Kuwait’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said flights were being diverted to other airports, without elaborating.

Many of the Gulf states allowed US bases on their soil thinking that it would provide a form of protection. But what has happened is that instead they are perceived as being agents of the US military and thus targets, something that they may not have bargained for when they first signed up, as this article headlined Iran and the Shield That Became a Bullseye says.

Iran came under attack from US military and occupation bases hosted by family monarchies around the Persian Gulf. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia provided their airspace and their land to US assets and military facilities. They have spent billions of dollars on so-called defence systems from the United States, wishfully thinking these would protect them from any potential attack. The way this has worked is that the US has always tried to divide and conquer by portraying Iran – both to the world and to the Persian Gulf countries – as a threat to security. By doing so, it has convinced these monarchies to buy weapons and defence systems and to enter into security pacts with the United States.

This war is a turning point in the history of not only the region but the history of the US as a hegemon and imperialist power. The myth of US bases as shields has been challenged in a way that cannot be ignored.

Hosting US military facilities has been sold as protection. In practice, it transforms Persian Gulf states from ‘protected partners’ into exposed forward positions – high-value targets in any confrontation… By embedding Persian Gulf states in Washington’s military architecture, these facilities narrow diplomatic manoeuvre, invite retaliation, and make civilian infrastructure vulnerable to spillover. The promised shield – security guarantees, rapid response, deterrence – becomes a bullseye.
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These fixed military facilities become visible targets, especially given Iran’s military doctrine, which relies on missiles and drones rather than fighter jets. Iran has produced and can continue to produce thousands of drones – affordable, easy to deploy, and capable of bypassing security and defence systems. The host states have lost their autonomy. They have lost their sovereignty. By hosting US bases, they became tied to US escalation choices. They did not have a choice about whether to take part in this war; by hosting those bases, they had already taken a side.
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US occupation facilities have endured more than 170 attacks since October 2023. The full damage sustained by the United States is far greater than initially acknowledged – US officials have privately estimated the true cost at closer to $50 billion, roughly double the Pentagon’s public figure.

Trump claimed that the new bombing was an act of self-defense by the US in response to Iranian aggression in shooting down the helicopter, another indication of the Orwellian way in which the US frames its actions. After all, it is the US that is sending its planes and navy half way across the world to be right on the border of Iran so that they can attack that country, and then when they fight back, they are labeled aggressors and the US claims the right to self-defense. It reminded me of how during the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, whenever any local of that country attacked the occupying US troops, the attackers would be labeled as terrorists and shipped off to Guantanamo, even though they were fighting a foreign invader in their own land. This shows the mindset that the US has, that it has the right to be anywhere and do anything and anyone who resists in any way is automatically in the wrong.

No doubt Trump was embarrassed that after claiming that the US had destroyed Iran’s military, they were still able to inflict damage. In addition to the downing of the helicopter, the US military has been steadily losing a lot of hardware.

The US military has lost dozens of aircraft –– including at least five fighter jets, seven Stratotanker refueling aircraft, a search-and-rescue helicopter and more than two dozen drones –– since the war with Iran began in late February, according to a Congressional Research Service report issued in May.

In early April, the US military had to launch a risky operation to rescue one of the pilots of a F-15E Strike Eagle that was shot down inside Iran. The military had to blow up two of its special operations aircraft on the ground in Iran during the covert mission, which involved hundreds of American military and intelligence personnel, including Special Operations forces.

In March, a KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq, killing all six crew members onboard. Days earlier, three US F-15 fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses, with all crew members ejecting safely.

A number of aircraft were damaged in Iranian strikes on a US airbase in Saudi Arabia, while other aircraft sustained damage after coming under Iranian fire while they were in the air.

Trump’s so-called strategy of threatening to bomb and then backing off saying the Iranians are close to agreeing to a peace deal on his terms is a hopeless failure. He then threatened to take over the island of Kharg, that handles roughly 90% of Iran’s crude exports. But this is also likely to be yet another empty threat. Trump has done many stupid things but that would be mind-bogglingly reckless even for him because it would require him to cross a Rubicon, to ‘put boots on the ground’ to use a cliche, and that step has always been seen as the start of a quagmire from which it is almost impossible to extricate oneself, because the occupying troops are extremely vulnerable to asymmetric warfare. Lyndon Johnson knew this about Vietnam but felt himself helpless to avoid doing so since the air war had not worked. That eventually forced him to not run for re-election.

Will Trump actually take such a step as trying to take over Kharg Island? He is stupid and impulsive enough to try if he is frustrated enough, even if all the people remaining in his administration who have some level of competence and expertise and historical awareness are aghast at the prospect.