The war against Iran: a month of contradictions and reversals

US lawmakers, however, saw no clear plan for what would follow, either militarily or politically, even as Trump and Netanyahu called on Iranians to rise up against their rulers. The war was thus framed from the start both as a targeted strike against military and nuclear capabilities and as the possible beginning of a political transformation.

Steady aims and shifting language

On 2 March, Pete Hegseth tried to draw a line around the operation. ‘This is not Iraq. It’s not open-ended,’ he said, as the Pentagon argued the United States was not drifting into a new prolonged war in the Middle East. Yet on the same day, officials would not offer a timeline and expected further US casualties.

A campaign described as finite was already beginning to show elastic edges.

By 5 March, the contradiction became clearer. Trump said the United States should have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader. Hegseth, however, insisted there had been no expansion of objectives. That pattern would recur throughout the month: the official military aims were said to remain fixed even as the political rhetoric around them widened.

The second week marked another shift. On 10 March, Hegseth said Tuesday would be the ‘most intense day of strikes’ so far and declared that the United States would not relent until the enemy was ‘totally and decisively defeated’. By then the war was plainly no longer just about nuclear facilities or command bunkers. It was expanding into a broader effort to suppress missile launches, naval activity and mine-laying in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

As the war entered its third week, the administration again emphasised continuity. On 19 March, Hegseth said US objectives remained ‘unchanged, on target and on plan’. The aims were described as dismantling Iran’s missile-launch capability, degrading its defence industry and navy and preventing it from obtaining nuclear weapons. By that point, the United States had struck thousands of targets and 13 US troops had been killed, with nearly 300 wounded. Iran still retained missile capability. The line from Washington was one of consistency. The battlefield, however, suggested a more complex picture.

The same day produced one of the clearest split-screen moments of the war. Trump said, ‘I’m not putting troops anywhere,’ before adding, ‘We will do whatever is necessary.’ At the same time, the Pentagon was considering additional deployments, and by 24 March thousands of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were expected to be sent to the region, on top of thousands of Marines and sailors already moved east. Public restraint and practical escalation were proceeding side by side.

Diplomacy, escalation and the limits of control

On 20 March, Trump said the United States was getting ‘very close’ to meeting its objectives and signalled he was considering winding down the war. In the same breath, however, he argued that the Strait of Hormuz would have to be guarded by ‘other nations who use it – the United States does not!’ It was another shift in emphasis: from maximal military ambition to talk of reducing the American role and passing the burden to others, even while the war’s central maritime crisis remained unresolved.

On 21 March, Trump issued an ultimatum to Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, threatening strikes on its energy infrastructure if it failed to comply.

On 23 March, the pendulum swung again. Trump said there had been ‘very good and productive’ talks with Iran and spoke of ‘major points of agreement’, postponing the threatened attack on Iranian power plants for five days. He pointed to movement towards a deal, while Tehran publicly rejected the claim. Markets rallied first on the headline before scepticism set in. The measure was later extended on 26 March by another 10 days, even as Tehran continued to deny that direct negotiations were taking place. Iran has since responded to a 15-point US proposal via intermediaries, setting out demands that include a ceasefire across all fronts and an end to targeted killings.

On the same day, Trump criticised NATO allies for what he described as a lack of support in the war, saying the alliance had done ‘absolutely nothing’ and warning that the United States would ‘never forget’ the moment.

Meanwhile, the conflict was widening geographically. On 24 March, Israel said it would occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which Defence Minister Israel Katz described as a ‘security zone’. Additional Israeli forces have since been deployed to the area. Hezbollah was drawn more deeply into the war after firing into Israel on 2 March. The Pentagon is also preparing to send thousands more troops to the Middle East.

A campaign that began as a strike on Iran’s leadership and military infrastructure had become a regional war with moving fronts and no settled political endpoint.

A war defined by its opening blow

Looked at in sequence, the first weeks reveal a clear pattern. The opening decapitation strike was operationally effective and, in military terms, unusually deep. It removed the supreme leader and much of the senior military and security leadership, including the Guards commander, the armed forces chief and the defence minister. It did not end there.

Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani and Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, were killed on 17 March. The following day, intelligence minister Esmail Khatib died. IRGC Navy commander Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri was killed in a strike on Bandar Abbas on 26 March, along with senior officers of the naval command.

But the political line around those deaths never settled.

The war was presented as limited, then shaded into talk of shaping Iran’s next leadership. It was said not to be open-ended, yet timelines kept slipping. Objectives were described as unchanged even as the emphasis moved from nuclear sites and missile launchers to Hormuz, energy infrastructure and hurried talk of a deal.

Taken together, escalation, uncertainty and sudden hints of restraint form a sequence familiar from Trump’s handling of other issues. Pressure and unpredictability often operate in tandem and may reflect a deliberate use of shifting signals – a tactic regularly employed to shape outcomes. Recent developments, including an extended pause on strikes against energy sites, indications of diplomacy via intermediaries and, at the same time, preparations for further troop deployments only reinforce that dynamic.

That is the real chronology of the first month: a war whose military opening was brutally coherent, but whose political explanation, like the pattern it followed, never quite was.