Of course the U.S. is winning the conflict in Iran. Pretending otherwise is progressive click-bait.

The strangest thing about some of the media coverage of the Iran war is not that it is skeptical of Donald Trump. 

What else is new?

But also, Presidents should be scrutinized, especially during war.

The strange thing is that so many progressive news outlets seem determined to interpret every development through the same tiny keyhole: How does this hurt Trump?

And if the answer isn’t obvious, the new question becomes: “How can we make this hurt Trump?”

A recent Vox analysis of the Iran negotiations is a perfect example: “Trump still thinks he’s winning in Iran.”

Trump thinks that for a simple reason: He is the President of the United States and the U.S. is winning the war against Iran.

But according to Vox, Trump’s expanding demands, his refusal to rush into a deal, and his insistence that regional countries move toward the Abraham Accords is evidence that Trump may be stuck, overreaching, or looking for some grand “mega-deal” to rescue himself politically.

But what if the opposite is true?

What if Trump is not expanding the problem because he is losing, but because Iran is?

That is the much more obvious reading, and it is the one anti-Trump media outlets keep missing.

Of course Iran is losing the war. This does not mean the conflict is clean, cheap, or risk-free. Wars are never any of those things. It does not mean every Trump decision has been perfect, or that the negotiations are guaranteed to end in a beautiful, triumphant signing ceremony. But by any serious measure of power, leverage, and survivability, Iran is in a far worse position than the United States.

The United States is militarily stronger. That is not a talking point. That is reality. Iran cannot defeat the United States in a conventional war. It cannot project power globally. It cannot protect its own leadership with confidence. It cannot even fully control the consequences of its own escalation in the Strait of Hormuz without risking further retaliation.

Iran’s proxy network, once the great terror architecture of the Middle East, has been badly degraded. Hamas has been pounded by Israel. Hezbollah has been hammered. The Houthis have been targeted. The whole Iranian model — fund the proxies, arm the proxies, hide behind the proxies — looks far less impressive after Israel spent the last few years decapitating leadership circles and blowing holes through the “axis of resistance.”

Then there is Iran itself. Ali Khamenei is dead after an airstrike. Iran’s leadership is hiding, underground, frightened, and divided. That is not strength. That is survival mode. A regime that cannot confidently show its own face to its own people is not dictating terms from a position of power.

The diplomatic picture is not much better. Iran has alienated its neighbors more than ever. The Gulf states do not want Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz, exporting chaos, and threatening regional commerce. Their public language may be cautious. Their private interests are not hard to understand.

China is not coming to save Iran. China cares about oil, trade, shipping lanes, and its relationship with the United States. Beijing may enjoy watching Washington bleed resources, but that is not the same thing as risking a major economic rupture to rescue Tehran. Russia is not coming to save Iran either. Russia has its own war in Ukraine, its own military demands, and its own strategic exhaustion.

Meanwhile, Iran’s economy is a wreck. Food prices are surging. Internet shutdowns have damaged business and exposed the regime’s fear of its own citizens. Unrest remains a live threat. The regime’s answer, as usual, is repression. But repression has limits when senior officials are afraid to show their faces in public for fear of assassination via airstrike. 

This is why anti-Trump bias is so damaging. It does not merely make coverage unfair to Trump. It makes coverage blind on the subject of Iran.

And many other stories.

If every story has to end with “Trump is doomed,” then the press cannot see the obvious: Iran may be the one trying to wait out American politics because it has few other cards left to play. Tehran’s best hope is not battlefield victory. Its best hope is that American media, progressive activists, gas-price anxiety, and midterm panic will convince the United States that winning is actually losing.

That is not analysis. That is wishcasting.

The Vox example matters because it shows how the habit works. Trump demands more, and the media calls it overreach. Trump refuses to rush, and the media calls it desperation. Trump pushes for regional normalization, and the media treats it as a distraction. But another interpretation is available: Trump believes he has leverage, and he is using it.

Maybe the final deal disappoints. Maybe Iran stalls. Maybe the war drags on longer than anyone wants. But pretending Iran is somehow standing tall because it has not yet surrendered is absurd.

Iran is battered, isolated, economically strained, internally fearful, and strategically exposed. The United States is not.

Progressive media can keep pretending otherwise to hurt Donald Trump. But that is not a viable long-term strategy. Eventually reality wins. And right now, reality looks a lot more like Iranian weakness than American defeat.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)