Commentator Tim Miller delivered a methodical and damning audit of the United States’ military gains from its conflict with Iran on Piers Morgan Uncensored, concluding that the tangible achievements of the operation amounted to little more than the destruction of some Iranian vessels and a reduction in missile capacity — an outcome he argued was so disproportionate to the costs incurred as to render the entire enterprise indefensible by any reasonable strategic standard.
“We’ve moved from one Houthi front to another,” Miller said. “The IRGC is in more control. And Iran has lost some ships and some of their missile capabilities. That’s it. That’s all we’ve gotten out of this.” The assessment was offered in response to host Piers Morgan’s observation that seven weeks into a conflict that had been publicly forecast to conclude within two to three weeks, none of the key strategic objectives articulated by the Trump administration appeared to have been achieved.
Miller constructed his argument around a comparative cost-benefit analysis. On the cost side, he enumerated the Strait of Hormuz having been closed to major shipping lanes, elevated energy prices affecting consumers across the Western world, critical infrastructure in Arab Gulf states taken offline, the United Arab Emirates seeking emergency financial assistance, over a dozen American service members dead, an unspecified number wounded in circumstances the administration had not disclosed fully, Iranian civilian casualties including school children killed in accidental strikes, and the depletion of US military materiel.
On the gains side, Miller said, the ledger was essentially empty of anything that had shifted the strategic balance in America’s favour. The IRGC — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which had been the primary institutional target of the military campaign — had emerged from the conflict with its internal authority more consolidated rather than diminished. The popular uprising within Iran that Netanyahu had reportedly predicted to Trump as a likely consequence of decapitation strikes had not materialised. The regime’s leadership structure, whilst disrupted, had not collapsed in the manner the administration’s most optimistic projections had described….See More
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