[T]he president knows that Americans not only want to see a winning result, but they want to see it sooner rather than later...

Tweet

President Donald Trump says he finds it insulting to hear critics say he does not have a plan to win the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. "People say he doesn't have a plan," Trump told reporters Monday. "I have the best plan of all, but I'm not going to tell you what my plan is."

Trump complained that many people seem to expect the president to say something along the lines of, "Here is my plan – we are going to attack at 9:47 in the morning." That would be ridiculous, he suggested.

Referring to the top officials standing behind him at a White House news conference – CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine – Trump said, "These people know what the plan is. ... They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us. But I can't reveal the plan to the media."

What to make of the president's statement? His critics dismiss it and say that Trump is constantly improvising – making things up – and has no coherent strategy. Trump's defenders say there is always a plan, even if Trump sees a strategic value in keeping it a secret.

Over the years, it has sometimes been called "the Fog of Trump." The president, The Free Press's Eli Lake wrote a week ago, "is doing his best to confuse the enemy and the rest of the world."

It's certainly working. Trump's latest fog-making effort began on Easter morning, when he posted on TruthSocial, "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F***in' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP." If that was meant to throw the enemy, and the rest of the world, off balance, it seems likely to have succeeded.

On Monday, Trump made the remarks quoted above in a news conference to detail the military's heroic rescue of two airmen shot down over Iran. 

On Tuesday morning, Trump posted another message for the leaders of Iran. "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again," he wrote. "I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end. Gold Bless the Great People of Iran!"

That was some serious Fog of Trump. It seems certain to confuse the Iranians. After all, Trump has threatened things and then backed down, and he has threatened things and gone through with them. Which is this? 

The problem with the Fog of Trump is that it confuses the American people, too. That is a particular problem because a growing number of Americans disapprove of the Iran war.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows that a majority, 54.9%, disapproves, while a minority, 39.2%, approves. With the war now in its sixth week, the number of Americans who disapprove is increasing, albeit not dramatically, and the number who approve is decreasing.

The first polls after the war's start on Feb. 28 found disapproval at 47.6% and approval at 42.5%. At that point, Trump's rating on handling the war was 5.1 percentage points underwater. Now, it's 15.7 points underwater. The war has become more unpopular.

Will a massive escalation of the war, as Trump threatened, persuade more people to support it? That's a risky bet, to say the least.

It's especially risky because such an escalation would go far beyond the original purpose of the war. Trump restated that purpose on Monday. "So many people ask, why are you doing this?" he said. "We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon."

Trump criticized former President Barack Obama's Iran deal for the specific reason that it would have, he said, ultimately led to Iran having a nuclear weapon. "If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon," Trump said. "I terminated that – and then the B-2 bombers." That last remark was a reference to last June's U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear sites.

So Trump began with, and still embraces, the ultimate goal of the war, which is, "We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon." By all accounts, that has already been accomplished for an extended period into the future. So now, Trump is talking about the death of a whole civilization? Where did that come from?

Even if it is all part of the Fog of Trump, it is undoubtedly alarming for millions of Americans. The bottom line is, Trump and American forces need to win the war in a way that is proportionate to the goal of the war. 

Also, the president knows that Americans not only want to see a winning result, but they want to see it sooner rather than later; why else would he have promised, from the very beginning, that the war would be brief? Trump needs to cut through the fog, focus on the goal and finish up.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

COPYRIGHT 2026 BYRON YORK