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President Donald Trump has laid out five objectives the U.S. aims to achieve as it considers winding down its war with Iran, but an Associated Press review found that several key aims remain undefined or unfulfilled as the conflict heads into its fourth week. The AP said Trump’s objectives have expanded since the war began Feb. 28, and that while U.S. and Israeli strikes have degraded Iran’s military capabilities, tactical successes do not necessarily translate to completing all strategic goals.
The objectives, as Trump framed them, include degrading Iran’s missile capability, destroying Iran’s defense industrial base, eliminating Iran’s navy and air force, preventing Iran from getting close to nuclear capability, and protecting U.S. Middle Eastern allies at the highest level. Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said the operation was “a resounding success,” adding that Iran’s navy is destroyed, its defense industrial base is dismantled, and its nuclear ambitions have “shatter[ed] more by the day.”
As the AP described, the missile objective is among the aims Trump previously emphasized, including a goal to “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground.” The administration has said Iran’s missile and drone programs are being overwhelmingly destroyed, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an update that ballistic missile attacks against U.S. forces are “down 90% since the start of the conflict.” Trump repeated the 90% claim and later said on Tuesday that 82% of Iran’s missile launchers were “killed,” but the AP said Iran continued to launch missiles and drones in the fourth week, including barrages at Israel early Tuesday after Trump said negotiations with Iran were underway.
The second objective—destroying Iran’s defense industrial base—has sometimes appeared separately and sometimes been grouped with missile-capability goals. The AP said U.S. Central Command has said its strike targets included weapons production and missile and drone manufacturing facilities, but Iranian attacks against neighboring countries and Israel have continued. The AP also said the objective has fallen off the list at times in earlier enumerations.
Trump’s third objective focuses on eliminating Iran’s navy and air force. The AP said the U.S. and Israel established air superiority and that Central Command said Monday that the U.S. has damaged or destroyed more than 140 Iranian vessels. It also noted that after a U.S. submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in early March, two other Iranian vessels—IRIS Bushehr and IRIS Lavan—docked in Sri Lanka and India and sought assistance, with no U.S. indication that they were later sunk or captured.
The AP said that while it was unclear how much of Iran’s naval capacity remains or whether it has planted mines, Iranian missiles have continued to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. That links to Trump’s fifth objective, which he added in a social media post Friday calling for the U.S. to protect Middle Eastern allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and others. In that framing, Trump said the Hormuz Strait would have to be guarded and policed by other nations that use it and asserted that “The United States does not!” as part of the objective.
The fourth objective centers on preventing Iran from getting close to nuclear capability. The AP said Trump’s messaging has shifted over time: he declared last June that the U.S. had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, but aides later warned Iran was close enough to a bomb to justify operations. While the U.S. has not announced new strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the AP said Israel has announced strikes on nuclear-related targets, including the killing of a top Iranian nuclear scientist. One of the AP’s central questions is whether Trump will seek to seize or destroy about 970 pounds of enriched uranium Tehran has, which is said to be buried under a mountain facility. The AP reported Trump said Monday that the U.S. would retrieve the uranium, but only if the U.S. reaches a deal with Iran; without permission from Iran, experts said seizing it would be a dangerous mission involving a sizable deployment of U.S. troops.
The AP said the administration is also keeping regime change out of its official war aims even as Trump has spoken about it. Trump has encouraged Iranians to “take over your government” after Israel, with U.S. assistance, launched strikes that the AP said killed Iran’s supreme leader and much of its upper leadership. Yet, the AP said Trump and his aides have not explicitly stated regime change as an objective. The AP said the U.S. has instead described efforts to end the war quickly and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic while claiming to hold talks with elements of the same Iranian government.
Finally, the AP said an objective focused on cutting off support for Iranian proxy groups has also fallen away from the explicit list. The AP said Trump officials have described the aim as ensuring “the region’s terrorist proxies” cannot destabilize the region or attack U.S. forces and that the Iranian regime cannot keep arming, funding and directing terrorist armies outside its borders. The AP reported that while the U.S. has struck Iranian-aligned militia groups in Iraq and Israel appears to be expanding operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the administration has not offered details on how it would permanently halt Tehran’s support.
Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.