Unlearned Lessons: How Trump Repeated Post-9/11 Foreign Policy Failures in Iran

President Donald Trump at the White House on July 6, 2026. As the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks arrives, the trajectory of presidential war-making powers comes under scrutiny. Over the past two and a half decades, US presidents have steadily expanded their authority to wage war globally without immediate constraints.

With Operation Epic Fury targeting Iran, President Donald Trump pushed these commander-in-chief powers to a new extreme. Initiating a war of choice against what he termed “the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror,” Trump acted without congressional authorization, NATO support, or a UN resolution. The offensive lacked public backing and emerged as a deeply unpopular modern conflict, launched without an imminent threat or a coherent plan for the aftermath.

History shows the US military excels at tactical combat, but lacking a strategic vision has repeatedly led to quagmires such as Vietnam, the sectarian civil war in Iraq that gave rise to ISIS, and the economic shocks tied to the Iran conflict. Previous administrations laid the groundwork for these interventions. The post-9/11 “war on terror” evolved from the authorized campaign in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda into President George W. Bush’s doctrine of “preventive war,” which drove the 2003 invasion of Iraq and resulted in massive civilian casualties.

The scope widened further under President Barack Obama through extensive drone campaigns in nations like Pakistan and Yemen, alongside the 2001 UN- and NATO-backed intervention to oust Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi without congressional approval. The fall of Gadhafi plunged Libya into a decade-long civil war, with Obama later acknowledging that failing to plan for the post-intervention phase was his greatest presidential regret.

Despite operational successes by the CIA, Joint Special Operations Command, US Special Forces, and the National Security Agency—which successfully decimated al Qaeda's leadership and ended the territorial caliphate of ISIS—broader foreign policy debacles persisted, from the Iraq War to the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan negotiated under Trump and executed by President Joe Biden.

Expanding the war on terror further, Trump asserted the authority to target Latin American drug cartel members as “narcoterrorists,” leading to strikes on Caribbean drug boats and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in early 2026. Emboldened by this operation, Trump ordered Operation Epic Fury, mirroring the sequence where early successes in Afghanistan encouraged the Bush administration to target Iraq.

A recurring failure in US foreign policy has been the neglect of post-conflict planning, leading to prolonged instability. In Iran, military victories against authorities in Tehran failed to achieve meaningful regime transformation, echoing President Trump’s own early admission regarding the unpredictable outcomes of forced political transitions. Twenty-five years after 9/11, the United States has shifted from a guarantor of global order to a primary disruptor.