America in Retreat

Good morning. Isaias is now the first Atlantic hurricane of the season. It’s headed for the Gulf Coast. There’s more news below, including a story about which college degrees are the most lucrative. (English isn’t one of them.) First, though, let’s talk about the war with Iran. Image Image Credit... Getty Images/Getty Images In retreat The war against Iran was meant to be a projection of American power, another example of the U.S. military’s reach. American forces had already destroyed three Iranian nuclear sites last year and snatched President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela out of his compound in Caracas. President Trump called the conflict a brief “excursion” into the Middle East to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. A little more than a week into it, he said the war’s objectives were “pretty well complete.” Seven months or so later, there are not many people saying that. As my colleagues David Sanger and Eric Schmitt report , the war has repeatedly constrained U.S. power rather than enhanced it. Take this past weekend’s hasty withdrawal of a dozen B-1 bombers from an air base in Britain. Not a big deal, the administration said at first: If you hear of a threat, it’s good to be cautious. We move these planes around all the time. Not difficult! (Except, as Eric reported , it’s pretty difficult.) On Monday, British and American officials described that threat: specific and credible information that operatives backed by Iran were planning to launch drone strikes against the planes and U.S. troops from right outside the air base’s fence. To anyone watching the war closely — and that’s David and Eric — the operation that brought the planes back to their bases in the United States “was another glaring example of how, time after time, Mr. Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have been forced into retreat, pulling back military forces that had been deployed to the Middle East and Britain as a deterrent.” That matters, they say, because such retreats tell the Iranians that they can make a superpower turn tail. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .