Trump’s victory rhetoric undercut by downed US jet in Iran war
Trump has repeatedly claimed dominance over Iranian airspace and used maximalist rhetoric to argue that the United States has won and Iran’s military capabilities have been eliminated in an effort to calm markets and the American public strongly opposed to the war.
“They don’t have anti-aircraft protection. They don’t have anything. They don’t have anything,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “They’re not fighting. They’re not even shooting at us, okay?”
Days later, on Friday, Iran shot down an American F-15E fighter jet, raising questions about Trump’s near-declaration of victory in the war the United States and Israel launched nearly five weeks ago. The same day, an A-10 Warthog aircraft reportedly crashed in the Persian Gulf after being hit by enemy fire.
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“This is another indication that Iran has a lot of cards it continues to play,” said retired Brigadier General Steve Anderson. “Obviously that puts us at risk.”
Although analysts praised the work of the US military, they said the attack cast doubt on Trump’s claim of air superiority over the Middle Eastern country. “I think now he’s going to have a harder time at least convincing the American people that Iran has been completely destroyed,” said former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a former Air Force pilot and Republican who has long criticized Trump.
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“This will definitely hurt him politically because it will give him more fodder to those who say he went in there recklessly,” he said.
In his address to the nation on Wednesday night, Trump said the United States would end the war within two to three weeks. But he wavered between saying the US was basking in victory and would stop opening the Strait of Hormuz to other countries, and threatening to bomb civilian areas (a war crime under the Geneva Convention) if Iran did not do so on its own.
“Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such obvious and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks,” he said. “Our enemies are losing and America is winning, as it has for five years under my presidency, and now it’s winning bigger than ever.”
But continuing the contradictions that have marked his rhetoric since the start of the war, Trump combined his promise to withdraw if Iran does not agree to a peace deal with a series of additional threats, a day after saying a deal was not necessary for the US to leave.
Republican former US Representative Charlie Dent criticized Trump’s bombastic language and mixed messages, saying, “The president’s problems are his own words.”
Dent said the loss of the plane further exacerbated Trump’s political problems, with polls showing that the vast majority of Americans oppose not only the war but also the president’s handling of the war. While supportive, his base has shown cracks and the GOP is worried about retaining control of Congress after November. “This war is a political issue for Trump and the party,” Dent added.
Trump suspended the possibility of a quick end to the war by claiming victory as a way to calm markets and reassure nervous members of Congress. But it has shifted gears repeatedly this week, reshuffling markets as Americans and their overseas allies question whether it will change its already dubious timeline again.
On Saturday, Trump announced on social media that the April 6 deadline for Iran to sign a peace deal or open the strait is approaching and that if this agreement is not respected, “hell will descend upon them.”
Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, never recovered politically from what was seen as the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, said Rick Davis, a former adviser to the late Senator John McCain and Bloomberg columnist. He wondered whether Trump would move beyond bomb threats.
“Are you deciding to send troops now?” Davis said.
He said Trump could face a political fate similar to Biden’s in the Iran war, and that the shooting down of a US plane would raise doubts about Trump’s competence, just as the end of the Afghanistan war created about Biden in some voters.
“I don’t think people are going to change their minds if they’re being mean to you,” Davis said.
