According to insiders, Trump’s team did not calculate the worst-case scenario, and when it did happen, they did not have a ready-made plan of action.
While planning a military operation against Iran , Donald Trump and his team misjudged Tehran’s readiness to escalate. In particular, the White House and the Pentagon were surprised by the Iranian decision to block the Strait of Hormuz. CNN reports this , citing several informed sources.
According to sources, the National Security Council under the US President failed to fully take into account what some officials called the worst-case scenario that the American administration is currently facing.
The publication’s interlocutors claim that the analysis and forecast of possible risks of such an operation by the Ministry of Energy and the Treasury, which were integral elements of the decision-making process under previous presidents, were “secondary considerations” this time.
It is noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were involved in the planning stage of the operation against Iran, but Trump made the final decision in a narrow circle of close advisors, and warnings about the potential economic consequences of closing the Strait of Hormuz were simply pushed to the background.
According to American officials, it will now take weeks for even emergency measures, such as escorting tankers through the strait with warships, to correct the situation.Read also:
Diplomats and former US officials admitted to CNN that the situation with the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz confused and surprised them.
“Planning to prevent this very scenario – impossible as it long seemed – has been a fundamental tenet of US national security policy for decades. I am stunned,” said the former US official who served under both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations.
In a recent closed-door meeting, members of Congress lashed out at senior Trump administration officials for the lack of an operational plan to unblock shipping in the strait, according to multiple sources. And while officials from the president’s team have denied there is a plan, the sources say there is no sign of any immediate solutions to the problem.
Sources say the Trump administration apparently underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the strait, as officials believed a military operation would hurt Iran more than the United States.
(C)UNIAN 2026
Taco’s ill-fated, ill-planned, and poorly executed war shall be renamed Epic Failure.
His biography should be named that.
“It is noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were involved in the planning stage of the operation against Iran,”
I’m sure their collective military expertise was put to good use. Mr Magoo would have had a better strategy than the TACO admin.
Poor prior planning leads to piss poor performance.
any knowable military advisor worth two shits could have (and would) have told him this would happen.
So either his military advisors are NOT worth the said amount or he is not listening to any body.
From Jay Kuo:
Trump moved suddenly and unexpectedly to bomb Iran in the middle of negotiations, taking out key members of their political leadership. He thought this would go like Venezuela, with an easy removal of the president and a quick end to hostilities, but he and his advisors badly miscalculated.
In part that’s because they ignored the Constitution and the law, specifically the War Powers Resolution, which requires express congressional authorization for war. Such authorization would have required time for deliberation, emergency hearings, and public debate—all things that a healthy democracy should undertake before it commits itself to a war as consequential as this one.
Had he spoken to real experts, instead of listening to real estate moguls such as Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, perhaps Trump would have understood that Iran was prepared to fight an asymmetrical battle of attrition and no amount of bombing its forces would dislodge the regime. As Jonathan Last of The Bulwark noted, there was even a white paper from the U.S. Institute of Peace, written over a decade ago, about how Iran would not quickly capitulate, even if its leadership were destroyed. That’s because it had in place a “Mosaic plan” that would divide military decision-making among 31 independent regions. Iran has now executed that contingency plan. Those same experts, along with anyone with common sense, would have pointed out that a prolonged conflict in the Persian Gulf could threaten the world’s oil and liquid natural gas supplies, particularly if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz as it has now done. The knock-on effects of this would be soaring prices for gasoline, fertilizer, jet fuel, heating fuel, and anything that requires shipment abroad.
If Trump acts as he has in the past, he will now seek a retreat from his epic error, even as he claims his primary goals were accomplished. That’s a hard point to make when those primary goals were never clear to begin with. It will be a doubly hard point to make as Iran steps up its drone attacks and keeps a fifth of the world’s oil from reaching its destination. To get there, Trump will need to find people to blame for this blunder, and there are already some prime candidates.
Trump told reporters that his decision to strike Iran was based on advice he heard not from his intelligence experts but from Kushner, Witkoff, Hegseth and Rubio.
In short, if you believe Trump, it was *their* advice of an imminent attack by Iran that caused him to pull the trigger on the attack. He was just going along with what they said!
If recent history is any guide, this would be a prime opportunity for Trump to finally get rid of Hegseth, who has seen an outsized share of scandals and whose leadership is, to put it mildly, not appreciated by the military brass. Like Noem before him, Hegseth is currently under fire for caring too much about his own brand and appearance (he recently barred press cameras from the Pentagon due to “unflattering photos” of him) and for misusing and wasting department’s funds, in this case blowing tens of millions of dollars on crab legs, lobster tails, fruit baskets and luxury goods for the Pentagon.
The war in Iran has become the final straw for many of his own die-hard supporters, many of whom feel misled into believing Trump was the “peace president” and wouldn’t embroil us into further wars, particularly in the Middle East. If the war drags on, and in particular if U.S. troops are deployed on the ground, Trump could see support collapse. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, 74 percent of respondents oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, including a majority of Republican respondents.
Trump finds himself very much in a bind as a result. In order to force Iran to allow oil to flow, and to find and destroy its remaining stockpile of nuclear grade weapons material, Trump will likely have to commit U.S. ground forces to the fight. That could mean far higher U.S. service member deaths and a plunge in popular support for his presidency.
But if he backs down and tries to claim victory, Iran may not let him do so. It could keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and remain in a state of war for an extended period as its military regroups and reorganizes despite continuous U.S. bombardment. It could continue to produce inexpensive drones and destroy container ships in the Persian Gulf. That could create a political disaster for Trump at home as prices for everything soar.
All this is to say, Trump moved too fast, didn’t consult Congress, ignored the experts (and common sense), and now needs an off-ramp and someone else to blame.
By now the pattern is unmistakable. And once again, the country will pay the price.
Taco’s drooling saliva drinkers won’t care if this war is ended in a disaster. They only care about the lies he will feed them again about what a big beautiful success his war was.
Speaking of poor planning…
The only Avenger-class minesweepers remaining in the U.S. Navy are based in Japan. The 4 minesweepers that were in Bahrain were decommissioned just weeks before the start of Operation Epstein Fury. They are apparently on the way back to the States to be scrapped. Good timing!
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/display-news/Article/4314634/us-navy-decommissions-avenger-class-mine-countermeasures-ships-in-bahrain/
Good all around planning by the Three Stooges.