{"id":1657,"date":"2026-09-10T12:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/how-donald-trumps-war-in-iran-is-failing-the-legitimacy-test-in-the-eyes-of-us-voters\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T12:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:52:19","slug":"how-donald-trumps-war-in-iran-is-failing-the-legitimacy-test-in-the-eyes-of-us-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/how-donald-trumps-war-in-iran-is-failing-the-legitimacy-test-in-the-eyes-of-us-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"How Donald Trump\u2019s war in Iran is failing the legitimacy test in the eyes of US voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump now has a new proposed timetable for his war with Iran, albeit without a clear purpose. Heading to the Republicans\u2019 midterm convention in Texas this week, the US president told reporters<\/a> the war would end \u201cimmediately after the election\u201d. This is coming from a president seven months into a conflict that he predicted would last only weeks.<\/p>\n

For all that time, the US has been jostling with Iran for military and strategic control over the Strait of Hormuz while seeking to further degrade the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 military capabilities. But without strategic direction, victory is impossible<\/a> and Iran\u2019s leverage over the Strait allows it to keep defining the negotiating battlefield.<\/p>\n

Capability without a definition of victory produces exactly what we have watched for weeks: tit-for-tat strikes that have failed to move the needle on the Strait, let alone Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

But behind the shortcomings of Trump\u2019s kinetic application of hard power lies a more profound failure. As much as wars depend on a coherent military strategy, they also need a strategic narrative \u2013 a story that provides and sustains the legitimacy of war. Trump\u2019s war has never had one.<\/p>\n

With the mid-term elections looming in November, the political costs of that absence are only becoming more acute for Trump and the Republican party.<\/p>\n

Consider the inventory of justifications offered since February. Before the war began, Trump promised anti-government protesters that \u201chelp is on its way\u201d. But when the bombing started it was about destroying Tehran\u2019s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Then, within a day, it was also about forcing regime change. <\/p>\n

Over several months, none of these ambitions were realised. In August, the vice-president, JD Vance, announced a new hierarchy of aims: keeping oil and gas cheap for Americans as \u201cgoal No. 1<\/a>\u201d, with Iran\u2019s nuclear question demoted to second place.<\/p>\n

Last week Vance went further by insisting<\/a> that there isn\u2019t a \u201cwar\u201d at all, even though Iran had fired missiles at Kuwait in retaliation to US strikes<\/a> on the cities of Bandar Abbas, Ahvaz, Aghajari, and Sirik. With each new justification and framing of this conflict, the original rationale for the war becomes harder to identify.<\/p>\n

This matters because legitimacy is itself a source of state influence, especially in the context of wars of choice. It is what generates societal resolve at home, sustains the support of allies, and preserves the institutional prestige of the military asked to do the fighting. Strategic narratives are the vehicle through which such legitimacy is achieved; they can convert painful sacrifice into a cost that is worth sustaining.<\/p>\n

And there is now a great deal of sacrifice that has yet to be given meaning. US Navy sailors enforcing the blockade have suffered from low morale \u2013 one crew member of the USS Abraham Lincoln went overboard in August<\/a> due to mental health, after a record deployment without a port call<\/a>. <\/p>\n

American military fatalities resulting from Iranian retaliatory strikes on US bases in the region have been quietly reclassified<\/a> by the Pentagon and moved out of the war\u2019s official death toll. There are mounting accusations of civilian casualties in Iran, where Iranian officials claim that a US strike targeted a wedding ceremony<\/a> near the Hormuz coast last week that killed four.<\/p>\n

Unconvincing narrative<\/h2>\n

These losses strain America\u2019s image among allies. However, the audience that most needs convincing is Trump\u2019s own. His Maga approach was built on the premise that: \u201cGreat nations do not fight endless wars<\/a>\u201d and his support base is clearly concerned about lengthy foreign entanglements. Yet these are the voters now being asked to absorb the war\u2019s costs without a compelling story that justifies them.<\/p>\n

Come the mid-terms, they will inevitably vote with inflation and gas prices in mind when they reach the ballot box. Polling already shows an erosion in support for the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wars of choice have failed this legitimacy test before \u2013 sometimes before a single shot was fired. In August 2013, the then UK prime minister David Cameron asked parliament to sanction airstrikes against Syria\u2019s Assad regime after chemical attacks and lost. <\/p>\n

The government\u2019s case rested on a story of salvation<\/a>, national standing and the moral duty to act. But that narrative could not compete with a rival story of loss, in which intervention meant repeating the errors of Iraq: mission creep, the futile sacrifice of soldiers\u2019 lives, and further damage to a reputation already bruised by two inconclusive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

There is an uncomfortable lesson for Washington here. The British case suggests that once a public comes to view a war of choice through the frame of loss \u2013 futile sacrifice, eroded prestige, no discernible end \u2013 no quantity of firepower can restore its legitimacy. The problem Trump has is that he initiated a shooting war with Iran first, leaving the narrative vacuum to be filled afterwards. Now it is filled with images of a bombed wedding, exhausted sailors and vessels sitting stranded in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Stories which successfully sustain public consent for military force often share two main ingredients: an immediate threat to the homeland, and an opportunity for the initiator to assume the role of saviour. Twenty-five years ago, the September 11 attacks supplied both in their most visceral form. This is why the invasion of Afghanistan garnered public and allied support.<\/p>\n

Trump currently has neither of these to fall back on. There is no communicated threat to Americans at home and no one is being rescued. There is only a rotating stock of rationales, none of which has held long enough to become convincing.<\/p>\n

Until his administration can communicate a narrative that speaks to an existential Iranian threat at home and casts America as the saviour of something worth saving, Trump\u2019s story will be written for him. <\/p>\n

He risks being remembered as just another gung-ho president who rushed into a Middle Eastern war he did not understand \u2013 the very legacy he promised voters he would never repeat.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Ben Soodavar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump now has a new proposed timetable for his war with Iran, albeit without a clear purpose. Heading to the Republicans\u2019 midterm convention in Texas this week, the US president told reporters the war would end \u201cimmediately after the election\u201d. This is coming from a president seven months into a conflict that he predicted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}