Three weeks into the conflict in the Middle East, the joint U.S.-Israel onslaught has killed much of Iran's leadership, knocked out much of its ballistic missile capability, sunk nearly all of its navy and, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, has "militarily WON" the war already.
And yet, the war goes on.
The Islamic regime remains in power in Tehran, continues to hit Gulf countries with occasional strikes and has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, driving oil prices through the roof and giving the global economy the jitters.
What is a commander-in-chief to do now?
Trump faces some tough decisions about next steps, according to a range of defence and foreign policy strategists. Chief among those decisions are choosing whether to deploy ground troops to weaken Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, and deciding how much further he's willing to pursue efforts to topple the Iranian regime.
These decisions are made tougher because of a paradox that has defined the war from the start: while the military objectives of the U.S. appear relatively clear and achievable, Trump's political objectives in attacking Iran remain muddled.
Perhaps unintentionally, Trump demonstrated that paradox in the social media post on Friday in which he declared the war "militarily" won. The word serves as a caveat, indicating that while U.S. and Israeli forces have hammered Iran, there's no end in sight to the conflict.
WATCH | Pentagon wants $200B from Congress for a war Trump says will end soon:Democrats and some Republicans are alarmed by the Trump administration's pursuit of another $200 billion for the war against Iran, with some saying it signals a dangerous escalation of the conflict and highlights a lack of coherent strategy.Signs of that contradiction abound:
Trump continues to downplay the likelihood of deploying U.S. ground troops, yet isn't ruling it out. Meanwhile, he is giving serious consideration to occupying Iran's strategic Kharg Island, which handles 90 per cent of the country's crude oil exports, Axios reported Friday. Trump told reporters on Thursday the war would be "over with pretty soon" and on Friday posted that the U.S. is considering "winding down" the military operation. Meanwhile, the Pentagon was petitioning Congress for $200 billion US in extra funding. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth described that as an amount that "could move" and added, "it takes money to kill bad guys." For context, that's three times as much as the U.S. has provided in military aid to Ukraine since 2022. On Friday, while departing from the White House for Mar-a-Lago, Trump described reopening the Strait of Hormuz as "a simple military manoeuvre. It's relatively safe, but you need a lot of help." At the same time, Trump pilloried fellow NATO countries as "cowards" for declining to send warships to provide that help.Freeing up the strait, the transit route for roughly one-fifth of the world's supply of crude oil and liquified natural gas exiting the Persian Gulf, has now arguably become Trump's top priority as global energy prices spike.
Bob McNally, who served as energy adviser to former president George W. Bush and now leads Rapidan Energy Group, an energy and geopolitical consulting firm, says Iran has been smart with its tactics in choking off the narrow waterway.
"Unfortunately, Iran has shrewdly played the strongest card," McNally told CBC News Network on Friday. "It has grabbed a hold of nothing less than the world's jugular."
Anyone in doubt of the metaphor just has to fill up their tank. A hemisphere away from the Strait of Hormuz, gas in the U.S. is now 30 per cent more expensive than when the war began three weeks ago.
A gas station in Pittsburgh on Thursday. The national average price of a gallon of unleaded gas in the U.S. reached $3.91 on Friday. (Gene J. Puskar/The Associated Press)McNally says it won't be simple for the U.S. to wrest control of the strait away from Iran, which he says still possesses thousands of small boats, drones and anti-ship cruise missiles.
"It's sort of like whack-a-mole … only there's thousands and thousands of moles," McNally said. "This may have to go on for another few weeks, if not more."
He's not the only analyst predicting the war will continue for that sort of timeframe.
Farzin Nadimi, an expert on Iran's military capability at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says the regime has large stockpiles of mines, mobile cruise missiles and hundreds of undamaged boats hidden along the coastline.
"I think it will take weeks to reach a point where there can be safe operations in the strait," Nadimi told the Wall Street Journal.
WATCH | Will Saudi Arabia be pulled into the U.S.-Israel war against Iran?:As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran spills over into neighbouring Gulf states, CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault asks political analyst Salman Al-Ansari about what it would take to pull Saudi Arabia into the conflict.Kelly Grieco, who specializes in U.S. foreign policy and military strategy at the Stimson Center think-tank in Washington, D.C., says control of the strait is central to Iran's strategy for getting through the war.
"Iran's strategy of drone and missile strikes is neither random nor desperate," Grieco wrote in a recent analysis.
"By widening the conflict and raising economic and political costs of continued fighting, Iran aims to create pressure on Gulf governments, global markets, and ultimately Washington, compelling it to halt the campaign," Grieco said.
Daniel Block, a senior editor at Foreign Affairs magazine, has a similar take.
Iran's strategy of widening the war and driving up the price of oil is aimed at "trying to make this conflict as intolerable as possible" for Trump and the U.S., Block told CBC News on Friday.
Soldiers carry the casket containing the remains of U.S. Army Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Ky., at Godman Army Airfield in Fort Knox, Ky., on Friday. (Jon Cherry/The Associated Press)Trump likely has less tolerance than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the war's economic spin-off effects.
"Israel is willing to go quite a bit further than the United States is in terms of its attacks on Iran," Block said.
"I think in [Trump's] ideal world, you would have a new leader in Iran who is not hostile to the United States, kind of like what happened in Venezuela. But I don't think he really cares whether the regime remains in power or not."
Iran's Islamic government would consider merely staying in power to be a victory, says Block.
"So long as the regime remains in charge of the country and the country remains territorially whole, they will say, 'We did it. We survived an onslaught by the United States and Israel, these two superior military powers. We won.'"