The Bunker: Iran, I bombed, I failed

This week in The Bunker: After a half-year of on-again off-again war, the U.S. finds itself lodged in a conflict it has proven unable to win; questions about the Pentagon’s Golden Dome aerial shield continue to go unanswered; ousting the high command at Stars and Stripes newspaper says more about brittle Pentagon leaders than hard-hitting reporters; and more.

SIX MONTHS ON

Waste deep in the Persian Gulf…

Last week, President Trump declared that he — it’s always first-person singular with this guy — has launched “Economic Warfare” against Iran. That’s as close as he’ll ever come to conceding that his “Military Warfare” has failed.

Confirmation of the change came Monday when responsibility for the demise of Iran’s regime flipped from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “We are launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe,” Bessent said. “Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.” Cuba and North Korea are smiling.

As this whatever-kind-of-war crosses the six-month mark on Friday, the U.S. finds itself in a weaker position, militarily, diplomatically, and economically, than when the president launched his surprise attack on Tehran on February 28. The U.S. deserved a more rational, and successful, campaign than it has gotten so far. By not losing, Iran won.

The Bunker covered both U.S. wars in Iraq and the U.S. war in Afghanistan. After six months, all were showing Army-green shoots of U.S. success: Saddam Hussein’s forces were driven out of Kuwait (Iraq 1, 1991), the ruling Taliban were ousted from Kabul (Afghanistan, 2001), and Saddam was pushed out of power (Iraq 2, 2003). The U.S. eventually won the first, lost the second, and tied the third.

In this latest U.S. military misadventure, Iran’s mullahs and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, while bloodied, have a stronger grip on Iran than they did before Trump attacked them six months ago. They haven’t relinquished their nuclear program. They have turned the once-open Strait of Hormuz into an Iranian river, spiking oil prices. “The world has spent decades worrying about what Iran might do if it acquired a nuclear weapon,” hawkish military scholar Robert Kagan wrote August 23 in The Atlantic. “It should now worry about something even more consequential: an Iran that has defeated the United States, no longer fears American attack, and controls access to the Persian Gulf.”

It’s tough to imagine a worse U.S. victory.

Presidential frustration is rising. After months of criticizing NATO states for not supporting a war begun without their knowledge, Trump is now training his guns on new targets for the same non-war crimes: Oman and South Korea suddenly found themselves in the crossfire last week.

As a bonus, Trump cited his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s murderous dictator, to justify scaling back long-scheduled U.S. military exercises with South Korea. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, added that relations between the two leaders are “still excellent.” This bromance comes despite Kim’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to help Russia invade Ukraine. And, four days after Trump kowtowed to Kim, North Korea test-fired a barrage of ballistic missiles into the sea.

Here’s what Trump’s own State Department has to say about Kim in its most recent accounting:

The government, through brutality and coercion including executions, physical abuse, enforced disappearances, and collective punishment, maintained control of the country; there were no significant changes in the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea during the year.

Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings; disappearances; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices; arbitrary arrest or detention; transnational repression against individuals in another country; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including censorship; restrictions of religious freedom; instances of coerced abortion or forced sterilization; trafficking in persons, including forced labor; prohibiting independent trade unions or significant or systematic restrictions on workers’ freedom of association; and significant presence of any of the worst forms of child labor.

The government did not take credible steps or action to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses.

No wonder they get along.

SHIELD OF DREAMS

Golden Dome tarnishing continues

Trump’s promise to build a relatively cheap Golden Dome defense against all aerial threats to the U.S. is running into conflicting cost estimates that could doom it before it is ever built. Its backers are fretting that they won’t get the money to develop it. And a top congressional auditor says the Defense Department has refused to brief his office on the Pentagon’s Golden Dome plans, more than 18 months after the president declared it would be built.

“We have, to date, not been able to talk to the Golden Dome office,” the Congressional Budget Office’s national security chief said August 19. “We’ve asked them for briefings, and we have not gotten any. They’ve not been willing to do so. So, I know nothing about what they’re actually building.” Neither do the lawmakers (PDF) being asked to pay for it.

While the Pentagon is saying the shield will cost $185 billion, the CBO has estimated it will cost $1.2 trillion. This missile-defense-cost-gap, like many Pentagon dollar disputes, stems from comparing apples to oranges. The Defense Department’s lower number is to build and operate its notion of a less-ambitious Golden Dome system for 10 years. Its backers argue that advances in artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and directed-energy weapons will drive costs down (“Psst — wanna buy a bridge?”).

The CBO’s cost projection, on the other hand, covers 20 years and the more expansive program Trump outlined in his January 2025 executive order. “The Golden Dome they’re building is perhaps different than the Golden Dome in the executive order,” CBO national security chief David Mosher said. “We couldn’t have costed what they’re building because nobody knows what they’re building yet.”

Given that Golden Dome is one of Trump’s top priorities, its Pentagon enablers are willing to dodge flak from inquiring lawmakers and their pesky bean-counters. But The Bunker, like all Americans old enough to pay taxes, has seen this movie before. Simply put, the Defense Department is leery of detailing its Golden Dome design because it’s fundamentally fuzzy, fictional, and fiscally foolish. Pass the popcorn.

DE-PRESSED

Scars and Stripes

The Bunker’s first newspaper editor — back when there were newspapers, and editors — had a neat trick when it came to handling disgruntled readers who’d call to complain about an article. He’d listen patiently while they let off steam. “You may have a point,” he’d finally say. The acknowledgement disarmed his critics, yet it never deterred him from righting what he thought was write.

This memory surfaces amid the ouster of the publisher, editor-in-chief, and a top reporter of Stars and Stripes. That’s the Defense Department’s in-house — but traditionally free of Pentagon interference — newspaper. The trio was canned after they spoke out about concerns over Defense Department leaders tinkering with their long-standing editorial independence.

Just over a century ago, Army General John J. Pershing championed the Stripes’ independence on the front page of its first World War I edition. “The paper, written by the men in the service, should speak the thoughts of the new American Army and the American people from whom the Army has been drawn,” he wrote. “It is your paper. Good luck to it."

But the Pentagon press corps, Stripes included, has had nothing but bad luck during Trump’s second term. Defense Secretary Hegseth has launched a broad crackdown on the free flow of U.S. military information. Nearly all Pentagon reporters have been booted from Defense Department headquarters for refusing to sign draconian rules ending their traditional access to much of the Pentagon. Regular press briefings have all but vanished — in the middle of a war!

This information drought has led to an estrangement between the Pentagon and the press that is good for neither. It has also soured communications between those fighting and those in whose name they are waging war. Hegseth, like his mentor President Trump, can never say “you may have a point.”

That’s too bad. No one commanding the Department of Defense, a war — or even a small-town newspaper — can always be right.

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