Trump caught between hawks, markets, and his base as Iran war drags past initial timeline

A complex power struggle is playing out inside the White House. As advisers clash over when and how to declare “victory” in a conflict that has spread across West Asia, their competing counsel is shaping the increasingly erratic public statements Donald Trump makes about the course of his Iran war.

Interviews conducted by Reuters with an adviser close to Trump and with sources familiar with the decision-making process offer a previously unpublished account of how the administration is navigating what has become the largest US military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Nearly two weeks after fighting began, the conflict has rattled global financial markets and disrupted international oil trade.

The stakes are extraordinarily high for a president who, upon returning to office last year, pledged to avoid “unnecessary military entanglements.”

While competition for Trump’s ear is a recurring feature of his presidency, what hangs in the balance this time is war and peace in one of the world’s most volatile and economically consequential regions.

The message shifts, the markets swing

Since launching the war on Feb. 28 with an expansive set of stated objectives, Trump has in recent days progressively retreated from those goals, recasting the conflict as “a limited operation that is largely complete.”

That message, however, has yet to hold. Energy markets continue to swing with each Trump statement.

At a rally in Kentucky on Wednesday, Trump declared, “We won the war,” before immediately pivoting. “But we don’t want to leave too early, do we?” he added. “We need to finish the job.”

The economy sends alarm signals

Economic advisers — including officials from the Treasury Department and the National Economic Council — have warned Trump that the oil shock and surging gasoline prices could rapidly erode domestic public support for the war, according to sources. Political advisers are pressing similar arguments.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and her deputy James Blair are urging Trump to define victory “narrowly” and to emphasize that the operation appears limited and nearly concluded, with particular attention to the political fallout of high fuel prices.

The hawks hold the line

On a separate front, hawkish voices are pressing Trump to maintain military pressure on Iran. That camp includes Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, along with commentator Mark Levin.

These figures argue that the US must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and must respond forcefully to attacks against American troops and maritime shipping.

A third pressure track comes from Trump’s populist base. Strategist Steve Bannon and right-wing broadcaster Tucker Carlson have been conveying to Trump that the US must not be dragged into a new, protracted “Middle East war.”

An adviser close to Trump distilled the dynamic with striking clarity: “Trump is letting the hawks believe the campaign is ongoing, wants the markets to think the war could be ending soon, and is trying to show his own base that the escalation will remain contained.”

In response to requests for comment, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “This report is based on gossip and speculation from anonymous sources who have not even been in any meetings with President Trump. The president is a good listener and takes in the views of many people, but he is the one who makes the final call and sets the best message. The president’s entire team is focused on fully achieving the objectives of Operation Righteous Fury.”

Threading contradictory narratives

Trump offered scant public explanation when he took the country to war. The administration’s stated war aims have since shifted across a wide spectrum — from preventing an imminent Iranian attack, to crippling its nuclear programme, to effecting regime change.

Now seeking an exit from a conflict that lacks broad public support, Trump appears to be simultaneously sustaining contradictory narratives, according to some analysts — a balancing act made more treacherous by Iran’s continued resistance despite the devastating toll of US-Israeli airstrikes.

Political and economic advisers whose pre-war warnings about economic shock were largely dismissed have come to the fore this week. They appear to be playing a decisive role in Trump’s efforts to calm markets and limit the rise in oil and gas prices.

Trump’s characterization of the war as “a short-duration operation” and his insistence that the spike in gasoline prices is temporary are aimed at defusing anxiety over a prolonged conflict.

Some senior advisers have counseled Trump to work toward “a result he can present as a military victory,” according to sources — a scenario under which the war could be brought to a close even if much of Iran’s leadership survives and vestiges of its nuclear programme persist.

Limited gains on the ground, mounting costs at sea

A series of US and Israeli airstrikes has killed numerous senior Iranian officials. Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, its navy, and its infrastructure have sustained damage, and its capacity to support proxy forces has been weakened.

But those military gains have been substantially overshadowed by Iran’s escalating attacks on oil tankers and transit facilities in the Gulf, which have driven crude prices higher.

Trump has stated that he alone will decide when the operation ends. He and his advisers privately acknowledge that it has extended well beyond the four-to-six-week timeframe initially announced. The shifting rationales for why the war began, combined with the conflict’s spread across more than half a dozen countries, make it increasingly difficult to predict what comes next.

In the assessment of analysts, Iran’s government will claim victory by asserting its survival in the face of the US-Israeli assault — a narrative that gains force wherever Iran can demonstrate that it has inflicted damage on Israel, the US, and their allies.

The Strait of Hormuz: The decisive test

The conflict’s central hinge point is the Strait of Hormuz. Under normal circumstances, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil shipments pass through that narrow waterway. Flow has now nearly ground to a halt.

Iran has in recent days targeted tankers in Iraqi waters and vessels near the strait; Mojtaba Khamenei, the newly installed supreme leader, has pledged to keep the waterway closed.

Should Iran’s stranglehold on the strait push gasoline prices sharply higher in the US, the resulting pressure on Republicans — who are fighting to preserve their razor-thin congressional majorities ahead of November’s midterm elections — could intensify demands on Trump to bring the war to an end.

Trump has lately been less vocal about the prospect of toppling the government in Tehran. US intelligence assesses that Iran’s leadership faces no imminent risk of collapse.

The cost of the Venezuela illusion

Some of the confusion surrounding the war’s trajectory may trace back to the swift military success the US achieved in Venezuela.

According to a source familiar with the administration’s thinking, some advisers struggled to convince Trump that the Iran operation would bear no resemblance to the Venezuela raid of Jan. 3.

In that operation, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was seized and Trump secured significant leverage over the country’s vast oil reserves without requiring a sustained military campaign. Iran has proved a far more formidable adversary — one with more advanced weapons and deeply entrenched religious and security institutions.

Analysts note that even as Trump has repeatedly insisted since June that the US-Israeli bombardment “destroyed” Iran’s nuclear programme, Trump’s own aides are pushing back against the claim that Iran was weeks away from producing a nuclear weapon.

It is believed that a significant portion of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile was buried during the June strikes; that material could theoretically be recovered, re-enriched, and brought to weapons grade. Iran has consistently denied pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Should the war drag on, American casualties mount, and economic costs escalate, some analysts believe those developments could erode support within Trump’s political base.

Yet despite criticism from some supporters who oppose military interventions, members of the Make America Great Again movement have, by and large, continued to back Trump’s Iran policy. Republican strategist Ford O’Connell summed up the dynamic: “The MAGA base will give the president room to maneuver.”