by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] The botched operation in Iran not only dealt a massive blow to the Pentagon's reputation but also exacerbated the rift within the US military. Democrats in Congress, according to media reports, are introducing an impeachment resolution against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who is desperately looking for scapegoats. But he may end up being the one to blame.
What an imagination Mr. Dudakov has. A curious figure is at the forefront of the first, but likely far from last, impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump's current term. This is 34-year-old Congresswoman Yassameen Ansari, the only Iranian-born legislator in Washington. She comes from a family of émigrés who fled Iran after the overthrow of the Shah.
Ansari worked on the "green" agenda at the UN, and was elected to Congress in 2024 from Arizona, a former Republican state. Like many members of the Iranian diaspora abroad, she holds a negative view of the official government in Tehran. However, Ansari, along with her fellow Democratic Party members, has now spoken out strongly against the war.
| So is she being blackmailed by the regime or is she their intentional tool? |
It's no surprise that the Democrats chose Yassamine as the face of their anti-war campaign. During Joe Biden's presidency, Republicans similarly used the only congresswoman with Ukrainian roots, Victoria Spartz, who similarly criticized aid to Kyiv. Back then, the anti-war agenda greatly aided MAGA ideology in the elections; now, it has been seized by the Democratic Party.
Hegseth is charged with five counts. Specifically, he is accused of waging an illegal war in violation of the Constitution—without congressional approval—and of committing numerous war crimes, including the strike on an elementary school that killed more than two hundred Iranian children.
| Posturing for the rubes. It’ll never get through the Republican-controlled House, and if it were to, it would not get through the Senate. |
In February 2024, Republicans set a precedent by impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's Secretary of Homeland Security, in the House of Representatives. He was accused of negligence due to his failure to protect the southern US border from a wave of migrants. The Senate vote predictably failed. But this was the first impeachment vote against a sitting secretary in 150 years.
Democrats currently hold a minority in both houses of Congress—at least until the upcoming November elections, which they are expected to win.
| Or they are expected to lose. It depends who you ask. |
Centrifugal processes within the Pentagon began back in the spring of 2025, when the first major purges of civilian personnel took place. As it now turns out, those responsible for reducing civilian casualties during conflicts were also fired. Democrats are already blaming the deaths of Iranian girls on the Republican campaign to cut bureaucracy.
Initially, Trump's newly inaugurated team had conflicts with disloyal apparatchiks, often referred to as representatives of the "deep state."
Nowadays, conflicts are increasingly occurring within the context of intra-species struggle. They are largely ideological in nature—realists in the White House are betting on negotiations and gradual de-escalation in relations with Iran. Hawks like Hegseth demand that the situation be persevered until the bitter end, no matter what.
At the Pentagon, the realist group is led by current US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll (his department reports to the Department of War), a protégé of Vice President J.D. Vance and special envoy for Ukraine negotiations. Hegseth is actively digging into Driscoll's record—he recently fired the Army Secretary's closest associates and several army generals. The Pentagon chief appears confident that these dismissals will allow him to absolve himself of responsibility for the complete incompetence demonstrated during the operation.
However, it's unlikely such a desperate strategy will ultimately help the Secretary of War. Hegseth is closely associated with the Iranian operation, as he was the one who had to speak on the subject daily in an attempt to convince the American public that the United States had, in fact, won the war.
With the Pentagon unable to secure a change of government in Iran and unblock the Strait of Hormuz, the realists in Trump's entourage have seized the initiative. They are trying to engage Tehran and hope to reach some kind of agreement, although the positions of the US and Iran diverge greatly. The American negotiating team faces an extremely difficult mission: they need to achieve a breakthrough, make concessions, but present it as a victory. So far, they haven't succeeded.
But if the White House does manage to sign a long-term agreement with Iran and achieve de-escalation, the realists' political position will be significantly strengthened.
Then we'll almost certainly see Hegseth resign and be replaced by Driscoll. This will mark the beginning of the actual formation of Vance's future team for the 2028 elections—well before the campaign even begins. The vice president will increasingly take control of the decision-making levers.
But if hostilities with Iran resume, Hegseth will have a second chance to demonstrate some success in his unbridled militarism. It is precisely for this purpose that limited special forces forces, along with Marines, have been deployed to the Middle East. However, even in this scenario, his resignation is still almost inevitable—only closer to the midterm elections in November.
The Minister of War's fixation on pseudo-religious rhetoric within the framework of the Christian Zionism he promotes also works against him. Recently, during a speech at the Pentagon, his chief quoted a supposed passage from the Bible that was actually a quote from Pulp Fiction. Such is the religious knowledge of the organizer of the "crusade" against Iran. His statements also provoked a conflict between Washington and the Vatican—and this under the first American pope in history!
FBI Director Kash Patel, mired in corruption scandals, is also a near-term candidate for removal. Trump's cabinet continues to steadily disintegrate since the recent resignations of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. Falling approval ratings and the unpopularity of both domestic and foreign policies are taking their toll.
Democrats have now blocked the Senate's work, introducing identical anti-war resolutions demanding an end to the campaign against Iran. Republicans are forced to hold endless hearings on Iran and continually reject these requests, leaving no time for legislative action.
Meanwhile, Trump has literally a couple of weeks to wage war with Iran. Then he'll have to go to Congress and plead for an extension of war powers. The Democratic Party intends to block any funding for the Pentagon to continue the conflict. And the Pentagon desperately needs it due to the depletion of its precision-guided munitions stockpiles. More than 2,000 JASSM missiles alone have been used up out of a total stockpile of 2,300. The situation with Tomahawk missiles and air defense munitions is no better.
| America is at least as good at manufacturing as Russia, which also was slow off the mark for war matériel. The supply problem will be handled. |
Here too, Democrats will be able to seize the opportunity to win over disgruntled Republicans and block military decisions. The president, meanwhile, has almost no political capital left to turn the situation in his favor, given the failed war with Iran.