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? Nada. When specifically asked about Kyiv’s assistance, he grudgingly replied that the U.S. would take help from wherever. Moreover, the gross U.S. overuse of Patriot missiles against drones means there probably won’t be any left for Zelenskyy to buy to counter Putin’s missile barrage on Ukraine’s cities. To add insult to gross injury, this week Trump resumed blaming Ukraine for failing to agree to a surrender “peace” deal with Putin.

Even more damning, Trump and team have rejected U.S. intelligence findings that Russia is sharing information with Tehran on targeting U.S. military assets in the Middle East. When asked about this by Fox News, Trump snapped back, “That is a stupid question.”

Hardly, since the Kremlin has long been helping Iran and its proxies to attack U.S. interests.

According to the Financial Times, Moscow provided targeting data to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to pass on to Yemen’s Houthi militia to help them attack Western ships in the Red Sea with drones and missiles last year.

And that is not the only help Putin has been providing the ayatollahs. Even as Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff fawned over Putin, the Kremlin signed a contract with Iran last month to send shoulder-fired air defense missiles to Tehran. If this Iran war lasts long enough, we might see them in action against U.S. targets.

Yet Witkoff, Trump’s chief negotiator for everything and an unbelievably naive real estate magnate who eagerly echoes the Kremlin, insists we should “trust” Putin’s denial of Russian help to Tehran. Keep in mind that Witkoff is one of the tiny team of ill-informed advisers who make up Trump’s foreign policy “brain” trust on Russia, Ukraine, the Mideast, and now Iran.

Of course, in the end, decisions on this war are made only by Trump, who has told us he relies on his instincts — because he knows better than anyone else.

So don’t expect Trump to warn his buddy Putin about the severe consequences of helping Iran. On the contrary, the White House is loosening its oil sanctions on Russia and hinting it might drop them altogether. This is supposed to help increase the global oil supply that is being choked off by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which 34% of the world’s seaborne oil flows. (In reality, loosening Russia sanctions mainly helps Putin.)

In sum: After months of being rejected by Trump, Ukraine is now sending drone interceptors to save U.S. lives, but Trump is rewarding Putin who is helping Iran take U.S. lives.

Call it idiocy, call it treason, call it anything you want. But it tells you all you need to know about Trump’s incompetence in running his ill-prepared war on Iran.

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