If the War Is Going So Well, Why Does Trump Need to Sell It?

IRAN WAR

October 1, 2026

By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr.

Once again, Donald Trump is Using Taxpayers' Funds to Sell a Failed Project to the American Public

Donald Trump is spending more taxpayer money to promote a war that remains unfinished, while the military and diplomatic record of the forces he commands shows depleted munitions, resentment from allies except Israel, abandonment of strategic locations and outposts, destabilization in the Middle East, and strategic and economic objectives that remain unresolved. This is the story of Trump's life and career in one paragraph, and with so much failure running through his veins, it's a wonder that he still remembers how to breathe, lie, and deceive you.

There is a beautiful little piece of political arithmetic in Washington these days: the government spends your money to tell you how well it is spending your money. Sucks, I know. The latest installment is a series of television advertisements featuring Donald and celebrating his war achievements. They are not labeled “Trump for President.” They do not need to be. They end with the rather extraordinary words: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” That is you. You who just kissed goodbye your food stamps to watch the government lie to you: The Department of Homeland Security has committed $20 million to the campaign, according to reporting by The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, while lawmakers and ethics experts have requested investigations into whether the spending violates restrictions on government propaganda and partisan political activity. Are we serious? What are we investigating here that is not already in the record, even in the news that FOX is publishing these days? The White House says the advertisements are legitimate public-service announcements, but even the cleaners of the West Wing know this is blatant Orwellian propaganda and abuse of our mentality.

But here is the question your commercials cannot answer, Mr. Trump: If your war is going so well, why do you need to sell it — and why are taxpayers paying for the sales pitch? A reminder: the Iran war is not over. On Oct. 1, you rejected Iran's latest proposal and said bombing could resume after the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The conflict that you and Bibi began on Feb. 28 has now lasted roughly eight months, with diplomacy repeatedly colliding with demands that neither side has accepted.

Your original military objectives were hardly modest. You said the United States would destroy Iran's missile capabilities, prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and eliminate other strategic threats. You described destroying Iran's missile launchers and industrial base, defeating its navy and denying it a nuclear weapon as measures of success. I hate to break it to you, but damage is not the same thing as achieving your political objective, and by the number of times that objective has changed, nobody knows anymore what this fuc...ing objective is. By September, public assessments still described Iran's nuclear program as unresolved, with the location of a large stockpile of highly enriched uranium unknown and international monitoring severely degraded. What you managed was a hole in the fuc...ng water, and now you use taxpayer money to lie to them?

Then came the ammunition problem — the sort of detail that tends to disappear when the soundtrack gets loud. In July, Reuters reported that you paused bombing after senior officials warned about dwindling munitions and limited effectiveness of continuing strikes. The Center for Strategic and International Studies subsequently documented shortages across several key munitions, while a Reuters assessment published today says the war has heavily depleted stocks of systems including ATACMS and Patriot missiles and that replenishing some capabilities could take years. The Pentagon is now spending tens of billions of dollars on new missile-production contracts to rebuild inventories. Why does all of this resemble the management of your unsuccessful economic ventures, man?
Meanwhile, Donald, the wider war has refused to behave. The Houthis remain capable of attacking Saudi Arabia and fighting around Taiz, where the United Nations has warned of grave risks to civilians. U.S. and allied nations across the region have absorbed repeated attacks to the point that they are attempting separate negotiations with the enemy to support their economic interests. Iran has demonstrated that it can continue to threaten the region even after enormous punishment. And on Oct. 1, Reuters reported that Tehran was preparing a broader retaliation if Washington resumes large-scale attacks. None of this means that Iran has “won” anything; Iranian society has paid an enormous economic and human price as well. What it means, though, is something simpler: the war has not produced the clean strategic ending you promised at its beginning.

That's why you introduced the sales department.

And there is something almost wonderfully Trumpian about it: first the man who wanted the Nobel Peace Prize got us into a war some friend of his wanted. He sent us the bill, and somewhere between the two, he introduced the advertising agency and made us pay for the sales pitch. How special is that? And you know what they say. You are spending public money on advertisements that resemble your political campaign material, including one that is nearly identical to a 2024 Trump campaign advertisement. And you call that legit public-service announcements? More than $2.5 million had already been spent on airtime by late September, according to AdImpact data cited by the Los Angeles Times, with $20 million committed to the effort. You called these patriotic public-service announcements. Several of your Republicans, along with Democrats and ethics experts, do not comprehend why taxpayers should finance them.

I guess taxpayers must get used to it. This is the Trump method in miniature: announce the grand result, confront the messy reality later, and sell the story while the accountants are still counting the receipts. His business career is full of claims about private adventures intertwined with public policy, tax advantages, government contracts and financing arrangements; his presidency has similarly relied on enormous public expenditures and tax-policy changes whose costs and benefits are fiercely contested. But the Iran campaign presents the pattern in its purest political form. A war was launched with maximal promises. It became a prolonged conflict with a middle regional power. Munitions were depleted. The Houthis remain in the fight. Iran remains capable of retaliation. Diplomacy has stalled. And you are now asking the people financing the enterprise to watch an advertisement explaining how successful the enterprise has been. While half of the financiers know you are lying, and the other half suspect it.

You say the advertisements are merely patriotic. You say they are lawful public-service announcements. Those questions belong to investigators and, ultimately, the public record. But there is one question no President can advertise away: What exactly is the victory being sold? Because if the war is still being fought, if bombing may resume, if Iran still possesses the capacity to retaliate, if the munitions stockpiles need years to rebuild, and if the original objectives remain only partly fulfilled, then calling the campaign a finished success is fiction, a very expensive bedtime movie for a nation of sleepers whose President is charging the audience for the ticket.