The downing of a U.S. aircraft and the dayslong search for a missing crew member has pierced the aura of invincibility that President Donald Trump has sought to project as he tries to stave off the increasing political risks of the Iran war he started five weeks ago alongside Israel.

Trump has repeatedly claimed dominance over Iranian airspace and used maximalist rhetoric to suggest the U.S. has won and that Iran’s military capability has been eliminated in an effort to calm markets and an American public that is strongly opposed to the war.

“They have no anti-aircraft protection. They have no nothing. They don’t have anything,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “They’re not putting up a fight. They’re not even shooting at us, OK?”

Days later, on Friday, Iran shot down an American F-15E fighter jet, raising questions about Trump’s declaration of near-victory in the war the U.S. and Israel launched some five weeks ago. An A-10 Warthog plane crashed in the Persian Gulf the same day, reportedly after being hit by enemy fire.

“This is just another indication that Iran has lots of cards that they continue to play,” said retired Brigadier General Steve Anderson. “Obviously that puts us at risk.”

Although analysts praised the work of the U.S. military, they said the shooting cast doubt on Trump’s claim of air supremacy over the Middle Eastern country.

“I think he’s going to have a harder time now at least convincing the American people that Iran has been totally destroyed,” said Republican former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a former Air Force pilot and longtime Trump critic.

“It’s definitely going to hurt him politically because it gives more fodder to those who say he went in there recklessly,” he said.

In a prime-time speech to the nation on Wednesday night, Trump said the U.S. would conclude the war in two to three weeks. But he has vacillated between saying that the U.S. was enjoying victory and would leave opening the Strait of Hormuz to other countries and threatening to bomb civilian sites — a war crime under the Geneva Convention — if Iran didn’t do so on its own.

“Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks,” he said. “Our enemies are losing and America, as it has been for five years under my presidency, is winning, and now winning bigger than ever before.”

But continuing the contradictions that have marked his rhetoric since the war’s inception, Trump coupled his withdrawal pledge with a litany of additional threats if Iran did not agree to a peace deal, one day after saying a deal was not necessary for the U.S. to leave.

“The president’s problems are his own words,” said Republican former U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, criticizing Trump’s bombastic language and mixed messages.

The loss of the aircraft only added to Trump’s political problems, Dent said, as polls show a large majority of Americans oppose not only the war but also the president’s handling of it. His base — while supportive — has shown cracks and the GOP is worried about holding on to control of Congress after November. “This war is a political problem” for Trump and the party, Dent added.

Trump has dangled the possibility of the war ending shortly with a claim of victory as a means to calm markets and reassure nervous members of Congress. But he has also repeatedly switched gears, roiling markets again this week as Americans and overseas allies questioned whether he would shift his already iffy timeline again.

On Saturday, Trump posted on social media that his April 6 deadline for Iran to make a peace deal or open the strait was coming close and if it didn’t comply, “all Hell will reign down on them.”

Rick Davis, a former adviser to the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and a Bloomberg contributor, noted that former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, never recovered politically from what was viewed as his disastrous pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. He wondered if Trump would escalate beyond his bombing threats.

“Do you now make a decision to deploy troops?” Davis said.

Trump could face a similar political fate as Biden from the Iran war, he said, with the shooting down of a U.S. plane casting doubt on Trump’s competency in the same way the end of the Afghanistan war did for some voters about Biden.

“I don’t think once people sour on you, they’re going to change their mind,” Davis said.

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(With assistance from María Paula Mijares Torres.)

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