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Steven Erlanger, in The New York Times (April 9, 2026), suggests this might be the "Suez" moment for the United States, marking the waning of American power and credibility in the world, similar to Britain's decline after the 1956 Suez Canal crisis.

Erlanger quotes a number of historians and political observers, including:

• Charles A. Kupchan, a political scientist and director of European studies at the Council on Foreign Relations: "The Iran war and its economic impact are piling on and reinforce this sense that the U.S. right now has become unpredictable and undependable."
• Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington: The war and its uncertain outcome "just accelerates an existing worry shared by countries around the world about what America’s declining quality of governance means for what they can expect from the United States."
• Bruno Maçães, former secretary of state for European affairs for Portugal: To the world, the war "is starting to look like a military defeat, more serious than Iraq or Afghanistan."

Jennifer Rubin, a former Washington Post journalist now writing as The Contrarian, says, "Trump has handed over an international waterway to the Iranians, who will now charge (at least) $2M per vessel. ... He has placed no restriction on Iran’s stash of enriched uranium, no limits on its missile program, and no barrier to its continued support for terrorist groups. If the aim of the war was regime change or even to end Iran’s ability to project power in the region, the war has been a colossal failure at a high cost (13 American deaths, thousands of Iranians dead, billions spent, damage to our Gulf allies)."

Rubin quotes Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): “They will control and toll the Strait (of Hormuz) for the first time. They keep their nuclear program. They keep their missiles. What a disaster."