US Goals Shift After 6 Months of War   08/27 06:15

   When President Donald Trump launched the war with Iran in late February, he 
initially forecast it would last four to five weeks. Six months later, there's 
still no off-ramp in sight despite Trump's repeated assertions that the war has 
been won or a deal to resolve it was nearly complete.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- When President Donald Trump launched the war with Iran in 
late February, he initially forecast it would last four to five weeks. Six 
months later, there's still no off-ramp in sight despite Trump's repeated 
assertions that the war has been won or a deal to resolve it was nearly 
complete.

   A June memorandum of understanding designed to pave the way to end the war 
has fallen by the wayside. U.S. stockpiles of key weapons have diminished and 
the Trump administration has pivoted to pressuring Iran economically rather 
than launching more strikes.

   As the shape of the war has morphed over the last half year, so have the 
goals for the conflict.

   One of the prime goals now -- reopening the Strait of Hormuz -- was not one 
of Trump's original objectives. The waterway had been a vital shipping lane 
through which about 20% of the world's oil passed.

   But Iran seized on it as a chokepoint for the global economy and it has been 
largely closed since the war started, driving up prices for fuel and fertilizer 
needed for farms and creating economic and political pressure in the U.S.

   The U.S. has had tactical success on its goals to degrade Iran's military 
capabilities. But some of the other key objectives Trump laid out at the start 
of the conflict remain unfulfilled -- and others have shifted.

   Here's a look at the objectives and what we know about where they stand:

   Stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon

   Last June, Trump declared that the U.S. had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear 
program. But when the war started, his aides justified the strikes by warning 
that Iran had been just weeks away from developing a bomb.

   One of the most pressing questions has been what will be done with a 
stockpile of about 970 pounds (440 kilograms) of enriched uranium that Tehran 
could potentially use for a weapon. The material is believed to be buried under 
three sites bombed by the U.S. and Israel last year. Trump said in a May 29 
social media post that it would be retrieved by the U.S. "in close coordination 
and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International 
Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED."

   Iran has not said whether it would consent. Without permission from Iran, 
experts have said seizing it would be a dangerous mission requiring a sizable 
deployment of U.S. troops into the country.

   Officials said that Tehran reaffirmed in the June memorandum of 
understanding that it would not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The deal 
called for Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. But many 
other details about Iran's program were left for future negotiations, and it's 
unclear how much progress, if any, was made before talks quickly fell off.

   Reopen the Strait of Hormuz

   Trump has said that a proposed deal with Iran would include the reopening of 
the strait and the U.S. ending its blockade of Tehran's ports, but at other 
times he has suggested the international waterway would somehow become American 
territory and indicated the U.S. could impose a toll on passing ships.

   Trump also has repeatedly said that the strait is open, including during an 
interview on Wednesday on conservative commentator Glenn Beck's radio show.

   "It's a functioning strait. Yes, every once in a while, there'll be a drone 
or a rocket or something shot, but it is a very functioning strait," Trump said.

   Destroy Iran's ability to fire missiles

   One of the prime objectives laid out by the administration was to "destroy 
their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground."

   Trump said in late March that Iran's missiles "are mostly decimated" and 
that 90% of their missiles and launchers were knocked out.

   By mid-May, that shifted to a more conservative estimate, with the president 
saying that 82% of Iran's missiles were gone.

   Iran has shown its ability to still launch attacks in the region, including 
drone strikes on ships sailing through the strait.

   As recently as July, the U.S. military still had Iranian military targets to 
strike, with its Central Command announcing it was striking "Iranian military 
command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime 
capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks."

   Destroy Iran's defense industrial base

   Early in the war, the president and his administration sometimes listed this 
as a standalone objective. Other times, it has fallen off their list.

   U.S. Central Command has said its targets for strikes in Iran have included 
weapons production and missile and drone manufacturing facilities.

   Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in early June that Iran has 
had "massive destruction" of its defense industrial base and "80 to 90% of 
attrition. It will take years for them to rebuild it."

   Eliminate Iran's navy and air force

   The U.S. and Israel quickly established air superiority in the skies above 
Iran, where they flew largely unchallenged.

   Rubio told lawmakers that Iran still has drone capabilities, but it lacks 
the ability to use swarms of drones to attack targets, as it did at the start 
of the war. He also said Iran does not have a navy anymore, and relies on small 
craft outfitted with machine guns that harass ships and sometimes drop mines in 
the water.

   Trump on Wednesday said that Iran's navy and air force are "totally gone."

   Protect America's Middle Eastern allies

   Trump, in a March social media post, added another objective for the U.S.: 
"Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies, including Israel, 
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others."

   The U.S. maintains thousands of troops on bases and other installations in 
the region, but Trump has been unclear on how far he'd be willing to go to 
protect Middle East allies from threats in the long term. In June, when the 
U.S. said Iran fired missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain, the U.S. launched strikes 
on Iran in response.

   But one ally -- Oman -- has notably not been feeling the warmth of Trump's 
offer of protection, and instead has grappled with Trump's wrath over the deal 
it was negotiating with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. In mid-August, he 
threatened in an interview that the U.S. would bomb Oman if it "gets in the 
way," using an expletive for emphasis.

   Cut off support for Iranian proxy groups

   In March, Trump and his administration repeatedly said degrading Iran's 
proxy terror networks was a key goal.

   As time has gone on, administration officials have offered fewer updates 
about this objective, which the president described as ensuring that "the 
region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world 
and attack our forces" and "ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to 
arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders."

   Early on, the U.S. struck Iranian-aligned militia groups in Iraq. But the 
biggest focus has been Israel's war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which Iran 
backs. Iran has insisted that the fighting in Lebanon must be stopped as part 
of any deal with the U.S. Israel and the Lebanese government announced a deal, 
which was mediated by the U.S., for Israeli forces to leave southern Lebanon in 
exchange for Hezbollah's disarmament -- something an administration official 
described as a "huge step," speaking on condition of anonymity because they 
were not authorized to address the issue on the record. But the militant group 
has refused direct talks and its leader has said it will not disarm.