The downing of the F-15 and the new attacks in the Gulf prove that Trump still has not won the war after five weeks

His latest boast was this Friday through his account on the Truth Social network: “With a little more time we can easily open the Strait of Hormuz, get the oil and make a fortune.”

Reality, unfortunately for him, is stubborn and coincides little or nothing with his diagnosis.

The US president was even able to announce in a press conference that he had sent the Iranian government through Pakistani negotiators a 15-point peace plan a few minutes after stating that they had already “won the war.”

That is the level of confusion that he systematically generates in each of his interventions, the nervousness that he creates in the financial markets and, fundamentally, the disappointment and anger that has begun to permeate American society, including those most loyal to the leader.

Political damage

A YouGov poll to The Economist published this Wednesday pointed out how Donald Trump has never been a particularly popular president among his own voters. In fact, Trump has only gotten more than 50% of Americans to approve of his performance for eight weeks. Including his two terms!!! Iran, inevitably, has broken all records.

Today, Donald Trump’s rating among Americans is even lower than the worst rating given to Joe Bidenhis predecessor in office. What’s more, in the last week alone, his management approval rating has fallen by 23 percentage points, which represents the biggest statistical debacle for a US president in this century. Although the bad news doesn’t end there.

According to YouGov data, 59% of Americans are clearly against the conflict in Iran and that figure stands at 24% when reduced only to Republican Party voters. A numerical drama that goes beyond war.

With the midterm elections – the midterm– On the not-so-distant horizon of November and the price of a gallon of gasoline above four dollars in the vast majority of states and an incipient shortage of fertilizers, the figures referring to Trump plummet in all statistics. His management of immigration, inflation, the labor market, international management… is negatively valued.

The war is becoming so complicated for Trump at home that even the followers of Reza Pahlavi, the direct descendant of the Shah of Persia, undisputed heir to the Iranian throne and the most faithful of the Yankee president’s allies, have begun to see how his followers doubt the war. The opposition itself to the ayatollah regime, after five weeks of bombings, is no longer so clear about the benefit for the Iranian people and the intensity of its demonstrations has decreased considerably.

war wounds

Con one of the two pilots of the F-15 shot down in the Iranian province of Kohkiluyeh, in the south of the country, still missingthe United States already has 13 dead soldiers and more than 300 wounded in Operation ‘Epic Fury’.

The grandiloquence of military nomenclature is not corresponding to what is happening on the ground and, already counting the events of this Friday, there are four F-15s and one F-16 shot down, one A-10 Warthog crashed near Hormuz, a KC-135 tanker aircraft lost in Iraqi territory, an F-35 hit by enemy fire for the first time since this 5th generation fighter was used and no less than 12 MQ-9 Reaper drones. All this without counting the fire from the USS Gerald Ford or the cost of moving amphibious and assault troops from the Far East.

The worrying thing is not the loss of the material, which does not reach 200 million dollars. Little change considering that Trump himself has asked this Friday to increase the Defense budget to 1,500 billion dollars, about 1,300 billion euros. Or what is the same, increase by 40% the money that the United States already allocates.

What is really worrying is the intelligence report to which the CNN. According to three different sources close to the Pentagon, the United States is fully aware that Iran currently maintains a “significant missile launch capacity”, including approximately half of its ballistic and cruise missile launchers, as well as attack drones.

All this after five weeks of non-stop bombing of strategic targets.

All this after Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz firmly and the markets are, at the very least, bipolar. On the one hand, the markets fall to the minimum even though they rebound strongly when the president gives some encouragement. On the other hand, the price of oil rises and falls, almost always with a barrel of Brent above $100. And to make matters worse, Dan Jørgensen, European Commissioner for Energy, is already talking about how we can prepare to ration fuel in the EU if things continue like this.

And all this, which could even be digestible in another war scenario, reaches paroxysm when Iran attacks every day with a stiletto. With Hormuz controlled from its batteries in the style of The cannons of Navaroneeach day choose a specific strategic objective. And it doesn’t fail. On Thursday it was an Amazon data center and an Oracle computing center in Bahrain. This Friday, a desalination plant and a refinery in Kuwait.

After 35 days of war, Iran has attacked at least 11 countries in its immediate vicinity including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, Oman… A war that, clearly, no one has won. Still.