Trump Declares 'Total Destruction' as Iran War Burns Through Munitions, Hormuz Remains Blocked
Fourteen days into the U.S.-Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, munition stockpiles shrink, and a disputed school strike leaves over 1,300 civilians dead with no accountability.
"We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise," President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday. "They've been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!"
Behind that declaration, a war grinds through its 14th day — and the human cost is already staggering.
The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, a chokepoint carrying approximately 20 percent of global oil and 25 percent of maritime shipments. With the waterway still blocked, European allies have quietly opened backchannel talks with Iran to secure safe passage.
Iranian UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani reports at least 1,348 civilians killed. Among the dead: children. The U.S. military has not released findings from its investigation into a strike on a school, and preliminary evidence points to outdated targeting data.
"It seems that the United States Central Command did not keep its target list up to date," said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Apparently, the building shifted some years ago from military use to the school and the Central Command targeting cell did not pick up that change."
Trump denied U.S. responsibility for the school strike on Feb. 28, two days after the war began. "Based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran," he said. "They are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran." The Pentagon has not identified personnel for disciplinary action.
The financial toll rivals the human one. Pentagon briefings disclosed the war cost $11.3 billion in the first six days, with Tomahawk missiles — at $3.6 million each — among the depleted stockpiles. "The navy will be feeling this expenditure for several years," an anonymous source told the Financial Times.
Oil markets lurched violently. Prices doubled from approximately $60 per barrel before the war to a peak near $120 per barrel in mid-March, before retreating to around $100. The International Energy Agency released 400 million barrels from strategic reserves worldwide; the United States contributed 172 million barrels of that total.
The war shifted sharply on March 8, when Iran's Assembly of Experts appointed Mojtaba Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader, days after the Feb. 28 strike killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Multiple sources report the younger Khamenei sustained injuries — a fractured foot and facial lacerations — though details about his condition remain unconfirmed.
Khamenei issued his first statement on March 12, from wherever he has been kept out of public view since the war began. "The countries of the region must close down the U.S. military bases; otherwise, we will be forced to attack them again," it read.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on March 13 that "Iran has no air defenses, no air force, no navy," and that the U.S. and Israel had struck more than 15,000 enemy targets. Trump predicted the war would likely be over in four or five weeks, saying, "we're getting very close to finishing that." The strategic picture, however, remains anything but clear.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps has held its blockade of the strait and laid approximately a dozen mines in the waterway. Three ships were hit by projectiles there on March 11 alone — a single day's violence that underscores how far open commerce remains from resuming.
France and Italy have opened talks with Iran to restore safe passage through the strait, after Iranian drone strikes on their military bases in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, killed one French soldier and wounded several others. Allies who entered this conflict as partners now negotiate separately with the enemy.
U.S. intelligence assessments indicate the Iranian regime is "not at risk of collapse soon," according to multiple reports. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged he could not guarantee the war would topple Iran's government.
Munition stockpiles are shrinking, civilian casualties are mounting, and no coherent strategy for post-war Iran has emerged. European allies pursue quiet deals while U.S. officials publicly promise total destruction — and more than 1,300 civilians already bear the permanent weight of what that promise costs.