Donald Trump insists America remains powerful, prepared and close to achieving its objectives against Iran.

Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt sees something far darker.

Trump has not ended a war, Schmidt warned Tuesday. He has created the conditions for a much larger conflict that could eventually claim tens of thousands of American lives.

“Donald Trump has lit the fuse,” Schmidt declared.

The former Republican operative and Lincoln Project co-founder portrayed the Iran conflict as the beginning of a long-term military disaster whose full consequences may not become visible for years.

“He made the world so much more dangerous,” Schmidt said, predicting that American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines could eventually be sent to “clean up this disaster.”

His forecast was deliberately apocalyptic.

Schmidt suggested that the larger confrontation might arrive in five, 10 or even 15 years and could kill “some score of tens of thousands” of American service members.

That is a political prediction—not an official military assessment or an established casualty projection.

No one can know with certainty whether the current conflict will expand into the war Schmidt described. Diplomacy, changes in leadership and regional developments could alter its trajectory dramatically.

But the conditions fueling his warning are real.

The United States has spent months conducting military operations against Iran while struggling to define a stable end state. The conflict has disrupted energy markets, strained alliances and consumed enormous quantities of American munitions.

Reuters reported that the military has used nearly all available stocks of certain long-range precision missiles, creating concerns about preparedness for another major conflict involving Russia or China.

Substantial portions of America’s Patriot and THAAD interceptor supplies have also reportedly been consumed.

The Pentagon and White House insist that the country remains fully capable of defending itself and that weapons production is expanding.

Replenishing sophisticated missiles, however, can take years.

Trump entered the conflict promising decisive strength. Instead, the Strait of Hormuz remained a source of instability, American forces faced continuing danger and the administration shifted repeatedly between threats of overwhelming attacks and claims that a diplomatic agreement was imminent.

Schmidt blamed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for failing to anticipate those consequences.

He predicted that Hegseth would eventually be removed, referring to him derisively as the secretary who “lost the war to Iran.”

Again, that is Schmidt’s partisan assessment—not an official determination that the United States has lost.

But his broader argument was that Trump responds to failure by replacing subordinates rather than reconsidering the decisions that produced it.

That brought Schmidt to a seemingly unrelated controversy: the collapse of the federal prosecution of former Olympic canoeist David Hearn.

Hearn was charged with felony destruction of government property after allegedly damaging the newly resurfaced Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Trump and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro publicly blamed vandals for the deterioration.

Government records later revealed widespread installation defects, including peeling that began before Hearn visited the site. Pirro’s office dropped the charge after concluding it could not prove that Hearn caused the damage.

Trump responded by attacking Pirro, accusing her of choking and saying she “folded like an umbrella.”

Schmidt predicted she would soon be gone as well.

The Hearn prosecution and the Iran war are vastly different in scale, but Schmidt sees the same presidential instinct beneath both.

Trump announces a triumph. The evidence later reveals serious problems. Responsibility is pushed onto someone else.

With the Reflecting Pool, the blamed parties moved from alleged vandals to the Interior Department, the contractor, career prosecutors and finally Pirro.

With Iran, Schmidt expects Trump to blame Hegseth, military officials, allies or anyone else necessary to protect his own image.

The former strategist also tied the foreign-policy crisis to domestic economic pressure.

Oil disruption has pushed gasoline prices higher, while corporations have recorded enormous wartime profits. Trump has accused energy companies of making too much money and demanded that prices fall.

The Guardian reported that crude prices had surged dramatically during the conflict, contributing to higher costs for American drivers.

Schmidt added the expansion of debt surrounding artificial-intelligence companies to his warning, predicting that the economic system was approaching an “explosive terminal point.”

That claim is also speculative. AI valuations and debt exposure pose risks, but a catastrophic collapse is not inevitable.

Schmidt’s warning should therefore be understood for what it is: a sweeping political indictment delivered by a prominent anti-Trump commentator.

Yet the factual foundation beneath parts of it cannot be dismissed.

The war has consumed weapons at an alarming rate. Energy markets have been destabilized. American personnel have been killed and injured. The administration has struggled to articulate a clear and lasting conclusion.

The Reflecting Pool case demonstrated the smaller-scale danger of forcing evidence to fit a presidential narrative.

An American citizen faced a felony prosecution after Trump’s administration insisted vandalism explained the failure of his signature renovation.

When the evidence no longer supported that story, the case collapsed—and Trump attacked the prosecutor who acknowledged reality.

Schmidt’s ominous question is what happens when that same refusal to admit error operates in a war.

A defective pool coating can be repaired.

A criminal charge can be dismissed.

A regional military conflict, once expanded beyond control, may not offer either escape.

Trump believes he can still declare victory.

Schmidt believes the fuse is already burning.