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The U.S. military<\/span> is straining under the pressures of the Iran war, according to two U.S. officials familiar with operations in the Middle East. One cautioned that this stress could lead to a \u201cbreakdown\u201d in the military\u2019s ability to effectively continue a war that President Donald Trump said would end in early April<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the conflict has engulfed the region, the military has grappled with a growing list of challenges: Iranian attacks on U.S. bases and warships in the Middle East, depleted stockpiles of defensive munitions, increasing casualties, maintenance issues on ships, lengthy troop deployments, complicated logistics, flagging morale and a host of other issues that have taken a heavy toll on troops, damaged military readiness, and a strained<\/a> Pentagon budget \u2014 contradicting moths of rosy pronouncements by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Both officials said that Iran is facing extreme economic pressure, according to intelligence reports. The first official characterized recent Iranian attacks on warships with ballistic missiles as a \u201cgo for broke\u201d strategy to increase economic pressures on America ahead of the U.S. midterms. That official said it was unclear which country would \u201cblink first.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump suggested on Sunday that the U.S. could \u201cstay and keep the oil\u201d\u00a0in Iran, like the neo-colonial resource grab<\/a> the administration is carrying out in Venezuela<\/a>. The second official said that a U.S. occupation of Iran would be \u201calmost impossible\u201d and that the idea was \u201cnonsensical obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s ability to overwhelm U.S. air defenses in the Middle East using attack drones and advanced ballistic missiles, as previously reported by The Intercept<\/a>, has left the U.S. military in a precarious state. The Trump administration failed to appreciate Iran\u2019s military prowess, said the first official. The other pointed to a \u201ccomplete lack of planning\u201d for the war. Since July 7 alone, there have been hundreds of U.S. casualties caused by Iranian attacks, according to official Pentagon statistics<\/a>.<\/p>\n The officials said the military\u2019s ability to function at peak capacity was crippled in the opening hours of the conflict when an Iranian missile and drone attack on February 28 destroyed Navy facilities in Manama, Bahrain, the region\u2019s most critical logistics hub. The Pentagon claimed\u00a0for months that the strikes did not significantly impact military operations, but last week acting Navy Secretary\u00a0Hung Cao admitted<\/a> \u201cthey blew the hell out of Bahrain.\u201d More than six months after the attack, Naval Support Activity Bahrain remains a shambles. \u201cWe\u2019re not getting back in there anytime soon,\u201d said Chief of Naval Operations\u00a0Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Navy\u2019s highest-ranking officer,\u00a0during a recent town hall<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Wall Street Journal investigation<\/a> previously found that rebuilding the U.S. Navy\u2019s Fifth Fleet headquarters, barracks, and communication towers at NSA Bahrain may cost more than $400 million, which the second official said could be an underestimate if it\u2019s ever attempted. Naval Forces Central Command referred questions about the cost estimate to Central Command, which did not respond<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump has touted the destruction of Iran\u2019s navy as one of his signature accomplishments<\/a> of the war, but the officials pointed to the severe strain placed on U.S. naval forces in the region. With the home of the Fifth Fleet knocked out and other ports in the region within range of Iranian missiles and drones, the Navy found itself facing the daunting challenge of maintaining a flotilla of more than 24 ships<\/a> \u2014 including two massive aircraft carriers and numerous guided-missile destroyers and cruisers, attack submarines, or supply ships\u00a0deployed at any one time.<\/p>\n While aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered, the planes and helicopters on them, as well as the other ships, require millions of gallons of fuel each week. And the sailors aboard the ships require hundreds of thousands of meals. This means Navy ships need to haul supplies more than 2,000 miles from a longtime U.S. base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. A War Department inspector general report<\/a> released on Monday noted that the shift in \u201cnaval bases and support ports posed significant challenges,\u201d pointing specifically to the \u201cissue with shifting logistics support and infrastructure to Diego Garcia\u201d and the challenges of \u201cextended sea transit requiring 14- to 18-day logistics cycles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult and ultimately unsustainable,\u201d said the second official, who told The Intercept that White House assumptions that Iran would \u201ccrack\u201d before the Navy have yet to be borne out.<\/p>\n The Navy has just 11 aircraft carrier strike groups, and amid the ongoing strain of extended deployments, its oldest carrier, the\u00a0USS Nimitz, has seen its service life extended<\/a>. So far, four of the 11 carrier strike groups have already been deployed to the Middle East during the war. Some of the remaining carriers are undergoing substantial repairs and will not be ready to deploy again for years.<\/p>\n The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group completed a record-breaking, 11-month deployment that also included the invasion of Venezuela. (Under normal conditions, a carrier would visit port about once a month to allow its crew to rest.) The ship was, according to a\u00a0Presidential Unit Citation<\/a>, under \u201cpersistent threat from enemy missiles and one-way attack drones\u201d during its deployment to the Middle East.<\/p>\n Early in the Iran war, the Ford suffered extensive damage from a laundry fire and a malfunctioning fire-suppression system that forced crew members to manually fight the blaze for around 30 hours. The fire halted sorties for two days, and around 600 sailors lost access<\/a> to their bunks due to the damage. The Navy claimed few casualties from the blaze, but reports soon emerged that the more than\u00a0200 sailors<\/a>\u00a0were treated for smoke inhalation or lacerations. <\/p>\n The Ford has also been plagued by plumbing issues for years. During just a four-day span in 2025, there were 205 breakdowns<\/a>. Before the Ford left the Caribbean, it was facing constant issues with the nearly 650 toilets aboard<\/a>. And then in the Middle East, the carrier again suffered from clogged, excrement-filled toilets, according to video obtained by CNN<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, spent most of its nine months at sea with no port calls, leading to reports of rampant morale problems, supply shortages, and suicide attempts, with at least\u00a0one crew member going overboard<\/a>. At an August 11 town hall in San Diego, families expressed deep concerns about their loved ones to Cao, the acting Navy secretary. But Trump dismissed worries about the sailors, saying the Lincoln\u2019s deployment was \u201cnot nearly long enough.\u201d Last month, the Lincoln\u00a0was relieved<\/a>\u00a0by the USS George Washington, allowing the heavily rusted Lincoln<\/a> to pull into Thailand for a port call.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those ships have left the region but sailors remain under persistent threat. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted a U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer with ballistic missiles this month, according to Central Command<\/a>. CENTCOM did not reply to a request for additional information about the strikes.<\/p>\n