The U.S. war on Iran has exposed the mounting costs to President Donald Trump’s solo foreign policymaking, driven by whim and unchecked by strategic planning or competent advisers.
Apparently, the president never foresaw Iran’s willingness to absorb pain or the likelihood that the ayatollahs would close the Strait of Hormuz and send global oil prices spiking. Willfully blind, he mistook Iran for Venezuela, where a dictator could be kidnapped and the government then be forced to kowtow.
Bent on a made-for-TV “win,” Trump is now mulling whether to send in ground troops, or whether to declare victory and withdraw without destroying the ayatollahs or their stock of enriched uranium, which was deeply buried by U.S. strikes last year.
The president’s huge miscalculations thus far should give all Americans chills about the danger of sliding into a long-running conflict.
One outstanding example of his blunders, which has gotten much too little attention, is his unforgivable failure to take up Ukraine’s longstanding offer to share Kyiv’s hard-earned expertise in countering Iran’s murderous Shahed drones.
It was an Iranian Shahed that killed six U.S. military personnel in Kuwait and wounded several others. They did not have to die.
In August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Trump and offered to share Ukraine’s sophisticated drone technology. As I wrote at the time, in a report from Ukraine on what has come to be known as the First World Drone War, Kyiv offered to send tens of billions of dollars’ worth of advanced Ukrainian-made drones and interceptors to Washington. In return, the United States would sell Ukraine double that dollar amount of U.S. weapons systems, particularly missile interceptors — all to be paid for by the Europeans.
Both countries would have been far better equipped today for the challenges of modern drone warfare.
Ukraine is unique in its ability to counter Iranian drones, since it has had to defend against Iranian Shaheds ever since Tehran gifted thousands of them to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Russia now mass produces the drones after modifying the Iranian models to make them more lethal. In 2025 alone, Russia fired 54,000 of these bat-shaped killers at Ukrainian cities, mostly targeting civilian infrastructure, including heating plants, electric grids, hospitals, and apartment buildings.
Yet, displaying his unrelenting hostility toward Kyiv, Trump brushed off Zelenskyy’s offer, which the Ukrainian leader has repeated many times since then. Never mind that the Pentagon is woefully behind in developing cheap drone interceptors that can repel the Iranian drones that Iran is now firing by the thousands at U.S., Israeli, and Gulf Arab targets.
Both in the current Iran war, and in the 12-day war with Iran in June, the U.S. and its allies have been using scarce, multimillion dollar Patriot PAC-3 missile interceptors — meant to take down cruise or ballistic missiles — to shoot down Shaheds that cost $30,000 to $50,000. (In an ultimate absurdity, even F-35s have been used to shoot down drones.)
For lack of drone interceptors, the U.S. and Arab allies are using up these Patriot missiles that are desperately needed by Ukraine and are on order by European nations whose skies have been violated by the Russian version of Shaheds.
Had Trump accepted Zelenskyy’s offer, the Pentagon could have been buying or coproducing Ukrainian interceptors for as little as $2,000 each.
Only on March 5 did the U.S. finally request help from Kyiv, which rushed a team of drone experts to help protect U.S. bases in Jordan. Ukraine is also responding to pleas for help from Arab allies in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
Did Trump show any gratitude for this help?
