Washington’s strategic breakdown: What the 12-day war with Iran revealed

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to remove Jeffrey Cross, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), along with other senior military leaders — including the head of the Army Reserve Command and the head of U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command — demonstrates the extent of disarray among American institutions after the 12-day war. Washington launched this war to offset the political and military fallout from the failures of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

According to Al Mayadeen, the U.S. government found itself facing a complex equation: on one hand, Tel Aviv was on the verge of catastrophic strategic consequences after Iranian missiles penetrated its defense systems and, in an unprecedented manner, struck military sites deep inside the occupied territories. On the other hand, U.S. President Donald Trump was desperately trying to present an image of “victory” to his allies, particularly as he faced difficult domestic challenges and harsh criticism of his foreign policy.

At this point, Washington decided to intervene directly through military aggression — moving from the role of supporter of Israel to a direct party in the war. However, the results were contrary to expectations, as the assault failed to achieve its objectives. Iran retaliated by striking the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

This left the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies caught between battlefield realities and the White House’s propaganda. The contradiction quickly escalated into a domestic crisis, producing two competing narratives: Trump’s and the White House’s version — claiming a decisive victory over Iran — and the more cautious assessments from U.S. intelligence, which concluded that the strikes had only delayed Iran’s nuclear program by a few months.

These reports leaked to American media, embarrassing the presidency before the U.S. public.

By the basic standards of democracy, Jeffrey Cross should have been commended, not punished. He carried out his duties with professionalism and took full responsibility for delivering the facts — unlike Trump, who misled the American people.

Yet, the country that spends billions of dollars and wages wars in the name of “spreading democracy” failed to uphold its own most fundamental democratic standards. Its “elected president” behaved like a medieval autocrat, dismissing any official who dared to challenge his narrative or diminish his so-called “victories.”

From the very beginning, Iran adopted a realistic discourse, saying that the attacks caused only limited and repairable damage — a claim that was later proven accurate.

Trump’s insistence on portraying the strikes — dubbed “Midnight Hammer Operation” — as “one of the most successful military operations in history” clashed sharply with the actual facts on the ground.

Nearly two months later, Washington and several European capitals are still seeking ways to pressure Tehran into nuclear negotiations — a program that Trump and Netanyahu claimed to have destroyed.

The recent dismissals show that Washington has failed not only on the military front but also in the battle of narratives. It has become clear that Iran succeeded in asserting its credibility to regional and international public opinion, while the U.S. government has sunk into contradictions and efforts to impose “intelligence loyalty” to the president at the expense of professional integrity.

What has happened reflects a double victory for Iran: first, its ability to withstand the joint U.S.-Israeli military assault and retaliate by striking both the occupied territories and a U.S. base; and second, its success in projecting the credibility of its narrative while exposing the contradictions of the United States to the world.