WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has listed five objectives that the U.S. wants to achieve before ending its war with Iran. Now, as he suggests the U.S. may soon be “winding down” the operation after three and a half weeks, some of his key aims remain undefined or unfulfilled.
Trump most recently outlined five goals for the massive air campaign. That's up from four laid out by his staff and since the war's start Feb. 28 (and up from the three generally enumerated by the Pentagon and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.) Though the Trump administration has said its objectives are clear and unchanging, the list of priorities has expanded and shifted as the war has taken a toll on the global economy, tested alliances and raised unanswered questions about the planning for the conflict, its justification and its aftermath.
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By most accounts, the strikes by the U.S. and Israel have significantly degraded Iran's military capabilities and killed scores of senior leaders. But those tactical successes don't necessarily translate to achieving all the president's strategic aims.
Some of his objectives are difficult to achieve and if the U.S. walks away with unfinished aims and Iran's paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard in power, Trump could face political fallout at home and global repercussions about what was accomplished in his decision to launch a war of choice that upended the Middle East and roiled the global economy.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said the operation “has been a resounding success — Iran’s navy is destroyed, their defense industrial base is dismantled, and their dreams of possessing a nuclear weapon shatter more by the day.”
Here’s a look at the objectives as laid out in Trump's words on Friday and where they stand:
1. ‘Completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability’
One of the prime objectives laid out by the president with Iran is to “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground."
The administration says that ability has been significantly degraded. But in the fourth week of the war, Iran is still launching missiles and drones, including a series of barrages at Israel early Tuesday after Trump claimed that negotiations with Iran were underway.
In an update last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran’s missile and drone programs are being “overwhelmingly destroyed" and that ballistic missile attacks against U.S. forces are “down 90% since the start of the conflict.”
Trump on Monday repeated that 90% statistic and said, “They can’t launch them, and they don’t have very many of them, as most of them have been annihilated.” He added on Tuesday that 82% of Iran's missile launchers were “killed.”
2. ‘Destroying Iran’s Defense Industrial Base’
Before Friday, the president and his administration sometimes listed this as a standalone objective, describing it as a goal to “raze their missile industry to the ground.” Other times, this has fallen off the list. The Pentagon has generally lumped it into the first objective of destroying Iran’s missile capability.
U.S. Central Command has said its targets for strikes in Iran have included weapons production and missile and drone manufacturing facilities. But Iranian attacks against its Gulf neighbors and Israel continue.
3. ‘Eliminating their Navy and Air Force’
The U.S. and Israel quickly established air superiority in the skies above Iran where they have flown largely unchallenged. U.S. Central Command said Monday the U.S. has damaged or destroyed more than 140 Iranian vessels.
After a U.S. submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in early March, two other Iranian vessels — the IRIS Bushehr and IRIS Lavan — docked in Sri Lanka and India and sought assistance from the two countries. There has been no indication from the U.S. that they have since been sunk or captured.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has its own navy that also relies on smaller vessels to do swarm attacks and drop mines. It is unclear how much of that force remains or whether it has planted any mines. But Iranian missiles continue to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
4. ‘Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability’
Trump made a marked shift over the last year after declaring that the U.S. has “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program in June, only for his aides to warn that Iran was just weeks away from a bomb to justify the current operations.
The U.S. has not announced new strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but Israel has announced a series of strikes on nuclear-related targets, including the killing of a top Iranian nuclear scientist.
One of the most pressing questions in the war is whether Trump will seek to seize or destroy about 970 pounds of enriched uranium Tehran has that could potentially be used for a weapon.
Trump for the first time on Monday said the U.S. would retrieve the uranium, which is believed to be buried deep under a mountain facility. But he indicated that would occur if the U.S. struck some kind of deal with Iran to the U.S. to retrieve it. Without permission from Iran, experts say, seizing it would be a dangerous mission involving a sizable deployment of U.S. troops into the country.
5. ‘Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies’
Trump in a social media post on Friday added a fifth objective for the U.S: “Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others. The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!”
The U.S. already maintains thousands of troops on bases and other installations in the region, and it's not clear how much further Trump is willing to go to protect Middle East allies from threats, and Iran is still able to attack those countries. It’s also not clear how far the U.S. is willing to go to keep open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has vacillated on whether the U.S. needs to take a role in policing it. On Monday, he extended a deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on its power plants.
Regime change is not officially on the list
Trump has spoken about regime change since the start of the war, encouraging the Iranian people to “take over your government” after Israel, assisted by the U.S., launched strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader and much of its upper leadership echelon.
Trump and his administration, however, have never explicitly stated regime change as an objective in Iran, despite making it clear they want to end the repressive theocracy's 47-year reign. “The leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems," Trump said Tuesday.
He added a moment later, ”This is regime change, right?”
Now the U.S. is claiming to be holding talks with elements of the same Iranian government as it looks to bring a swift end to the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic. And those hopes for the Iranian people appear set to continue unfulfilled.
Also falling off the list: Cutting off support for Iranian proxy groups
Trump administration officials have offered few updates about this objective, which the president has described as ensuring that “the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces” and “ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
While the U.S has struck Iranian-aligned militia groups in Iraq, and Israel appears to be expanding its operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the administration has not offered details about how it’s going to permanently halt Tehran’s support for the militant groups.
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Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.