The American administration’s assertions about its military dominance in the skies have been absolute, with phrases like “total control” and “unchallenged airspace”, even going so far as to say that Iran does not even have the necessary weapons to respond – but these latest events show that this superiority has been exaggerated
The war with Iran, which was already quite unpopular among the American people, entered a new, even more problematic phase, with the news that an American fighter jet was shot down over Iran.
There is still a lot we don’t know, including the whereabouts of the two crew members. Although CNN reported this and he is receiving medical treatment, we don’t know what happened to the other one.
And this was followed by news that Iran struck a second American fighter jet on Friday. The pilot managed to maneuver the aircraft out of Iranian territory before ejecting and was later rescued, a US official told CNN.
None of these incidents mean that Iran is suddenly on equal footing from a military perspective. So far, the number of American casualties has been limited, with no known deaths in the past three weeks.
But in a conflict where military dominance is the US’s main advantage, this episode highlights the dangers of asymmetric warfare, the costs of which the American public is no longer willing to pay.
These events also question those about his complete dominance of Iran’s skies – and also debunk the idea of impenetrability he has tried to construct over the last month.
These statements had already been refuted, but this is an exemplary case. President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggested that the United States and Israel had a kind of free rein to fly over Iran. They stated that Tehran does not have the capacity to counter American supremacy.
At a March 4 meeting — nearly a month ago — Hegseth said that dominance was just around the corner. “Starting last night, and scheduled for completion in just a few days, in less than a week, the world’s two most powerful air forces will have complete control of the Iranian skies,” Hegseth said. He called it “uncontested airspace.” “And Iran won’t be able to do anything about it,” he added.
Trump has also been reaffirming this dominance of the air in the last two weeks. “And we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country; they can’t do anything,” he said on March 24, adding that the United States could attack a power plant and “they couldn’t do anything.”
The president claimed for weeks that Iran had “no navy”, “no army”, “no air force” and “no anti-aircraft system”. In a report on Wednesday night, he said it could hit Iran’s oil facilities, “and there’s nothing they can do.” “They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100% destroyed,” Trump said. “We are unstoppable as a military force.”
Again, these are two downed planes among thousands. The administration has occasionally stressed that there will be setbacks, including loss of life. And Hegseth, in the same March 4 briefing, acknowledged situations where “some drones pass by or tragic things happen.”
But the administration’s claims about its military dominance in the skies have been absolute, with phrases like “total control” and “uncontested airspace” and even saying that Iran does not even have the weaponry needed to respond.
This is just the latest example of how Trump and those around him seemingly exaggerate military success.
Following the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities last June, Trump repeatedly stated that the country’s nuclear program had been “annihilated” and classified it as irretrievable. However, an initial assessment of US intelligence services did not reach this conclusion. And, in fact, just nine months later, the government once again presented Iran as an imminent nuclear threat.
Shortly after the war began, Trump falsely blamed Iran for an attack on an elementary school, an attack that, as we later discovered, was likely carried out by the United States, according to a preliminary investigation and other evidence.
And just one day ago, Trump’s claims about the destruction of Iranian missile launchers were greatly exaggerated — and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps still maintains about half its capacity.
The political problem with all this is that US military success is supposedly the administration’s main advantage.
Americans have little faith in the mission. They think it hasn’t been explained. The list of four objectives was constantly changing. And perhaps the biggest problem is the economic pessimism resulting from the herd in the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting gasoline. Americans simply don’t think war is worth it.
Throughout this period, Hegseth, in particular, argued that the media did not give due importance to the military success of the campaign. “This is what fake news ignores,” he said at the same March 4 briefing. “We took control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without ground troops.”
A month later, the most important waterway remains a very important exception. And Iran’s control of airspace and the end of its missile program do not appear as complete as advertised.
