Murat SofuogluUS Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth survived an impeachment attempt in the House of Representatives, but the political pressure surrounding his handling of the Iran war is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
On November 10, the Republican-controlled House voted 211–204 to refer eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee, effectively shelving the effort for now.
The Pentagon chief has defended US military operations under his leadership, including strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the war against Iran, as “lawful”.
Despite the Trump administration’s continued support, Hegseth could face a difficult period amid growing Republican concerns about his handling of the conflict and the political fallout from the impeachment attempt.
Beyond the impeachment proceedings, Hegseth also faces “behind-the-facade questioning from President Trump regarding his standing, leaving his political future in severe jeopardy,” according to geopolitical analyst Dan Steinbock.
“Hegseth was precisely the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Steinbock tells TRT World, referring to the Iran war, which many military analysts regard as inconclusive.
The Trump administration, however, recently claimed that his defence secretary “is certainly winning the war”.
Hegseth could become a political liability for the Trump administration if Republican leaders, particularly potential presidential contenders such as Vice President JD Vance, come to view him as an obstacle to retaining the White House in 2028, analysts say.
Some administration insiders and experts suggest that Hegseth might not remain in office until the end of the year.
“Any given leader will protect those in their inner circle only as long as the political cost of doing so remains manageable, “ says Ozgur Korpe, an academic at National Defence University, and a military analyst, citing political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s “selectorate” theory, which studies relations between political survival strategies and economic realities.
“For the time being, President Trump continues to support Hegseth and maintains that the decision regarding Iran was the right one. However, the cost of this support is rising rapidly in both political and economic terms,” Korpe tells TRT World, referring to Vance’s increasing criticism toward the Iran war and growing cost of living across the US due to the conflict.
“In my view, Hegseth may remain in his position in the short term, but it seems more likely that he will leave the post in the coming months.”
The Trump administration ultimately decided to launch strikes against Iran alongside Israel on February 28, in a conflict widely described by critics as a war of choice.
Hegseth, whose extremist Christian beliefs have drawn scrutiny, reportedly played a significant role in persuading Trump to attack Tehran, promising a swift victory comparable to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January.
“With his apocalyptic Christian-Zionist beliefs, he should never have had a role in the highest echelons of the Pentagon,” Steinbock tells TRT World.
Did Hegseth make the US military great?
Beside Hegseth’s failure to understand dynamics of the Iran war, military analysts see serious deficiencies in Hegseth’s management style in the Pentagon, a crucial American institution in extending American influence across the globe.
“Hegseth is unqualified and too inexperienced for his position. Hegseth operates a trillion dollar global corporation with ‘branch offices’ in 80 countries and he runs it like a small business. He ‘thinks retail when he should be thinking wholesale’," Edward Erickson, a leading American military historian and a retired US army officer, tells TRT World.
“There is no evidence that the US military is stronger today than in 2025. Arguably, US missile inventories are so depleted that a strong case can be made that the US is weaker,” says Erickson, referring to how the military’s crucial air-defence munitions have run out of their stocks due to the Iran war.
When it comes to strategic thinking, no one also believes that Hegseth is a brilliant strategist.
“Hegseth is a terrible strategist who failed to balance ends-ways-means (an achievable objective-how to do it-using the resources available). There is no end in sight for Trump's War against Iran,” Erickson observes.
Korpe agrees with Erickson.
Unlike famous military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s analysis, which says that war is the continuation of politics by other means, Hegseth’s Iran conduct has not produced a political outcome neither in the form of a regime change in Tehran nor a peace deal with it, which “cannot be described as a sound strategy,” according to Korpe.
While Hegseth claimed that the US military has inflicted "historic devastation" on Iran's military capabilities, analysts point out how the war has led to tens of billions of dollars of damage to American military facilities across the Middle East from Gulf countries to Jordan and northern Iraq. There are signs that Washington will decrease its presence in many Arab Gulf countries.
“Independent analysts view the grinding, nine-month conflict as a strategic disaster that has failed to control the Strait of Hormuz wreaking global economic havoc,” Steinbock says.
Does Hegseth’s purge help?
Under Hegseth, more than 20 generals and admirals have been fired or forced to resign, while his office has reportedly blocked promotions of senior commanders over ideological concerns.
Hegseth maintains that the high-level departures are not politically motivated but are “long overdue” as part of his efforts to remove what he calls “woke” elements from the US military.
At a recent press briefing, he accused critics and those seeking his impeachment of pursuing “ideological agendas”.
Erickson, however, argues that experienced and capable senior officers were removed “for politically motivated reasons” because they were “highly educated professionals who told Hegseth the truth rather than providing him with politicised biased positions.”
“As a retired army officer, I have heard that many senior active officers are very unhappy with Hegseth and with the administration's Iran war, the Venezuela coup d'etat, and the kinetic strikes on suspected drug boats,” Erickson says.
“These operations seem to violate international laws of war and set a bad precedent for the future.”
Steinbock shares those concerns, arguing that Hegseth, “under the guise of removing ‘woke’ leaders”, wants to turn the US military “into an at-will political playground while gutting combat readiness during active hostilities”.
He warns that the dismissals have damaged the military's “strategic cohesion”, compromising the country's “basic national security”.
Analysts also warn that Hegseth's approach risks undermining military professionalism by prioritising political loyalty over merit.
“Hegseth appears to favor a form of ‘subjective control’, in which officers are selected based on their political and ideological alignment. While his bold rhetoric such as ‘ending the war on warriors’ conveys a potent political message, it fails to build institutional capacity,” Korpe says.
“On the contrary, I believe there is an institutional erosion taking place.”
Concerns about ideological influence extend beyond senior military appointments to the views expressed by members of Hegseth's inner circle, particularly towards Muslims.
Ryan Higgins, Hegseth's senior adviser for religious issues, shared social media posts describing Muslims as people who “many times come from barbaric cultures” and are “destroying the entire planet”, while claiming that “Islam teaches death to all who do not comply”.
Erickson says many of his friends serving in senior military positions are “unhappy with Hegseth's views on minorities and on Islam”.
