Trump’s mixed signals on the war with Iran

The U.S.’ unpopular war with Iran is in its second week, and most Americans expect it to make gas prices worse. President Donald Trump has started saying the conflict is almost over but is giving mixed signals about just how soon.

“I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” Trump told CBS News on Monday afternoon. “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no Air Force.”

Later that day, he gave House Republicans a very different message.

“We haven’t won enough,” he said, pointing to Iran’s refusal to surrender: “Iran was supposed to be this big, powerful country. We rapped the hell out of them. And, you know, I don’t know when they cry uncle, but they should have cried it two days ago. Right?”

That night, he threatened Iran on social media with “Death, Fire, and Fury.”

So what’s going on?

Trump’s assertion that the war is almost over lands right as there appears to be a major U.S. offensive.

Two days before Trump told CBS that the fighting is nearly over — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told CBS that the war was “just the beginning.”

“We have Only Just Begun to Fight,” the Department of Defense declared on social media Monday.

On Tuesday, Hegseth announced a wave of new attacks on Iran.

“Today will be yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined, and better than ever,” Hegseth said.

Trump seems locked in on keeping oil moving through the region. He threatened Iran on social media Monday night with attacks “TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far” if it continued to block oil tankers from traveling through the region.

It’s easy to see why Trump is concerned. Republicans were already staring down likely losses in the House in November’s midterm elections. One Republican operative predicted to The Washington Post there would be a “bloodbath” if the price of gasoline continues to go up.

But rising oil prices was also to be expected. Iran is a major producer of oil, and it’s attacking other countries in the region that produce and distribute oil. “If they rise, they rise,” Trump sanguinely told Reuters last week of gas prices, arguing the outcome — an overthrow of an unfriendly American government — would be quick and worth it.

And while Iran can’t compete with the U.S. militarily, extended economic warfare via gas could be one way the regime pushes back on the U.S., said Suzanne Maloney, the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations on Iran.

It’s hard to say.

Trump is open to killing the newest supreme leader of Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. And one thing military experts I talk to are watching for is whether the U.S. starts sending in troops on the ground. The U.S. has been fighting from the sky and sea, which greatly limits casualties, but ground troops would be a major escalation — and mean more U.S. service members killed.

“I don’t think Donald Trump has the stomach for sustained operations involving ground forces,” said Rosa Brooks, a national security expert at Georgetown University Law Center.

Mark Cancian, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed, saying he didn’t see the U.S. making moves to escalate in that way.

One danger of an extended operation is that the U.S. might not have what it needs to fight other battles, should the need arise. The Trump administration has already spent billions on missiles and weapons while fighting Iran, and could be at risk of depleting its stockpile, military scholars have warned.

“My prediction is that at some point in the next few weeks,” Brooks said, “Trump will declare victory (regardless of facts on the ground) and large-scale US military operations in Iran will wind down.”