The public split last week between Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth over whether the conflict with Iran is a worthwhile expenditure of US resources and power is now permeating an urgent question: How does the Trump administration get out?
asserted
administration → permeate → question
The debate over the war inside the administration has hardly been a state secret since it started more than eight months ago.
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it → start → administration
Vance privately expressed scepticism about a full-scale military operation; Hegseth, fresh from the capture of president Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, was among the most gung-ho.
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Hegseth → express → ho
Last Wednesday (Washington time), after the Republicans’ broad defeat in the midterm elections, Vance was unsparing: “The reason we lost is the war.”
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we → lose → elections
He added: “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so.”
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losing → add → years
Hegseth responded with a defiant, self-promoting video that seemed to be an argument for full-speed ahead.
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that → respond → video
With the US military again massing a major force near Iran, Hegseth argued to “fight, fight, fight”.
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Hegseth → mass → Iran
Now the US president must decide where he will come down as he weighs whether to launch a renewed attack in the coming days.
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he → decide → days
Just as Donald Trump cited a jumble of objectives as the war began – collapsing the Iranian government, dismantling the remnants of its nuclear program, restricting the country’s missile arsenal and ending Iranian help to proxies in the region – he is struggling to articulate how much more the United States should expend in the deeply unpopular conflict.
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States → cite → conflict
Last Wednesday, the president said it was “largely true” that Republicans lost badly in the midterms because the conflict had driven up petrol prices, as Vance said.
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Vance → say → prices
But he added that he would make the same decision to go to war again.
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he → add → war
“The Iran thing, we had to do,” he said, “and we continue to do it.”
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we → have → it
Like presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower in Korea, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon in Vietnam, and the four presidents who tried to extract themselves from Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump is discovering that every escalation plan and every negotiating strategy is rife with trade-offs.
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plan → try → offs
Tempting as it may be to declare victory and leave, history will assess whether he stopped the Iranian nuclear program or ended up bolstering Iran’s determination to obtain a weapon, and whether he eviscerated the hardline leadership or cemented it in place.
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he → declare → place
The choices are made all the more vexing for Trump by his new, lame-duck status.
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choices → make → status
The Iranians will be calculating that he has been weakened; before the election, Congress had authorised no supplemental funds for a war the Pentagon conservatively estimates has already cost $US47 billion ($68 billion), not counting the hundreds of billions of dollars in higher gas and oil prices.
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Pentagon → calculate → prices
They may be calculating that time is on their side.
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time → calculate → side
“The concern is that Trump will conclude that he is facing his worst nightmare for the next two years: going down in history as a loser,” said William F. Wechsler, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and a former top Pentagon counterterrorism policy official.
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Wechsler → conclude → programs
“The only way out of it, he may therefore conclude, is to win the war.
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he → conclude → war
That could lead to a decision to restart major combat operations, if not immediately, then in the months to come.”
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That → lead → months
Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have presented the president with a menu of military options that Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, developed in recent months.
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Cooper → present → months
It is unclear which way Trump will go: he has approved resuming a major campaign against Iran several times recently only to pull back from the operations just hours before they were to begin.
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they → go → operations
On Sunday (Washington time), Trump told CNN it was “highly unlikely” the US would have to renew strikes if negotiations were successful.
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negotiations → tell → strikes
“They’re withering away financially,” he added.
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he → wither → ?
“We’ve hit them militarily.
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We → hit → them
We could finish them off.”
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We → finish → them
At the core of the problem, according to people engaged in the debate, is a fundamental issue: Trump and his aides still cannot agree on what they are trying to accomplish.
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they → accord → what
The most ambitious option that the US and Israeli militaries have developed calls for a short but intensive operation of several days the targets of which would probably include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenals, according to several US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
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who → develop → anonymity
But they stressed that they had no expectations that a few days of battle would collapse the government; for that, US officials are relying on continued economic pressure.
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officials → stress → pressure
Any option that involves major combat operations would include strikes from attack planes aboard two aircraft carriers now in the region (a third carrier is expected in about two weeks); fighter jets at land bases in the Middle East, as well as US-based, long-range B-1 and B-2 bombers.
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carrier → involve → East
In total, scores of fighters, bombers and other support planes would join the fight.
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scores → join → fight
More than 50,000 troops in the region, Europe and the US are assigned to the overall Iran mission, as are more than a dozen warships.
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warships → assign → mission
In recent weeks, the US and Israeli militaries have stepped up exercises, flying planes over Iraq to practise strike manoeuvres.
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militaries → step → manoeuvres
The Pentagon and State Department have withdrawn personnel from bases and facilities in the region as a precautionary measure.
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Pentagon → withdraw → measure
The US also recently delivered an additional Patriot anti-missile battery to Israel, military officials said.
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officials → deliver → Israel
Trump has often spoken about targeting Pickaxe Mountain, the American name for a deeply buried nuclear site that Iranians call Kuh-e Kolang.
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Iranians → speak → that
Trump has said he is considering using a 22,000-pound MOAB bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in the US arsenal, against the site.
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he → say → site
But weapons specialists say the MOAB explodes above ground, producing a wide blast, and would probably not destroy an underground site such as Pickaxe, which is composed of granite.
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which → say → granite
And it is far from clear that it is worth the effort: while Iran has reportedly stored many of the advanced centrifuges that could purify uranium, the nuclear material to manufacture a bomb is still untouched, under the rubble of a June 2025 attack.
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material → store → attack
A days-long campaign would inflict more damage on Iran’s already degraded missile and drone arsenal.
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campaign → inflict → arsenal
…and 45 more, not listed.
The Aporia
