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US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is among the Trump administration officials said to be pressuring reporters to tell the story of the war their way.
Former ambassadors have also raised concerns that despite calls for diplomatic talks to resolve the conflict, the US is lacking crucial expertise on the region to guide the Trump administration's actions.
TRANSCRIPT
REPORTER: "Do you want to say a few words?"
ROGER: "The sooner we get out, the better. Staying in - I mean, I've lived through Vietnam, I've lived through the Iraq war, I've been through Afghanistan. It's not going to end well."
That's Roger, a resident of Connecticut in the US.
His comments reflect the low support for the Iran war among the American public, some of whom have cited Donald Trump's own campaign promises to avoid entangling the US in new Middle East conflicts.
"It's pretty clear day after day after day by the things he's said, and someone like that should never be making decisions about how to use the military."
But much of the 18-country region is now a chaotic battlefield scarred by drone and missile strikes as the US and Israel remain locked in conflict with Iran.
US President Donald Trump has asked Congress for more than 280 billion dollars (US$200 billion) for the war, a sum that Mr Trump says is a small price to pay for a military system he maintains is dominating Iran.
"It's going to be over with pretty soon. We've obliterated their Navy. We've obliterated their — just about everything there is to obliterate, including leadership."
He's unlikely to get it - with the Republican-dominated Congress reportedly wary of alienating voters further ahead of the mid terms.
But a group of former US ambassadors have told a panel at the American Academy of Diplomacy that the administration has bigger problems - arguing the war in Iran is exposing big gaps in how America goes to war that could prove risky and dangerous.
John Bass is a former US ambassador to Afghanistan.
"Plenty of folks talk about critique policy, from retirement. Very few people will actually get under the hood in the middle of a crisis to critique that response. So the fact that we're doing this today is a reflection of how disturbed this group and many of our colleagues with similar sets of experience in war zones, in crisis operations; how disturbed we are at the breadth and the depth of the failings of the current State Department leadership."
Normally, United States foreign policy in the Middle East would be underpinned by the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, typically led by a veteran diplomat.
The administration’s most recent budget proposed a 40 percent cut to the bureau, though Congress eventually enacted less dramatic reductions.
Still, John Bass says that in divisions of the State Department that typically would handle the Iran response, numerous veteran diplomats with decades of collective experience have been fired, retired or were reassigned — replaced by more junior officials or political appointees.
"I and my fellow panelists are aware of any number of instances in which former colleagues were either fired last year, included in the reduction in force effort."
It doesn't end there.
The Trump administration has left the assistant secretary position in charge of Near Eastern Affairs vacant, along with key ambassadorships in the Middle East.
Four of the five supervisors in the bureau have temporary titles.
Perhaps most importantly, the administration also eliminated the dedicated Iran office, merging it with the Iraq office - which former US ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard says was a mistake.
"Our Iran experts, if they were still employed, would have been saying: OK, this is how Iran has always reacted in the past. Iran has never beaten anybody in a state on state war. Asymmetric is how they work, so where's their biggest impact in Lebanon? Asymmetric through Hezbollah. What are the Houthis all about? Asymmetric. And so, senior diplomats would have thought this through and thought, what are the asymmetric ways they can come in and hurt us."
The United Nations has been repeatedly calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis in the Middle East.
UN Secretary General deputy spokesman Farhan Haq says the conflict is getting completely out of control.
"And the secretary general said to Iran, stop attacking your neighbours. They were never parties to the conflict. He added that the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz causes enormous pain in so many people around the world that have nothing to do with this conflict. Mr. Guterres said that it's time for the force of law to prevail over the law of force and for diplomacy to prevail over war."
But the ambassadors argue that the lack of expertise and available staff for planning has impacted the ability of the US to negotiate a peace agreement.
Jeffrey Feltman is another former US ambassador to Lebanon.
"Safety of Americans is the first priority of everything we're talking about here. But if you're also trying diplomacy, isn't this a nice pressure point to say we're also looking at letting people leave our embassies. We're also raising the levels of the travel advisers, and that adds diplomatic pressure to the negotiations that you say you want to succeed."
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump and his aides have been ratcheting up the pressure on journalists to cover the war in the Middle East the way the administration wants.
Trump has complained about war coverage in both specific and general ways.
In a social media post, he said news reports exaggerated the damage to planes that were attacked by Iran at an airport in Saudi Arabia, while he has also accused media outlets of falling for AI-generated false reports created by Iran.
The government’s top media regulator has warned that broadcasters risk losing their licences if they don’t stay away from "fake news".
Mr Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, have also questioned the patriotism and credibility of news outlets because of their reporting.
"Some in this crew, in the press, just can't stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look up at the TV, and they see banners; they see headlines. I used to be in that business, and I know that everything is written intentionally."
All presidential administrations tangle with the press - it’s considered the natural byproduct of journalists’ role in a democratic society.
But author of the 'Presidents versus the Press' book, Harold Holzer, says these incidents speak to a hostility toward the very idea of being questioned.
"Every president has demanded and desired that the press praise him and not criticise him. This is not a new phenomenon. What's new is the personal way that President Trump does it. He doesn't argue that it's a national security issue, even that it's a patriotic issue. He argues that women shouldn't question him. He calls them names. He tells them to shut up. That level of personal intimidation is totally without precedent. And maybe the ugliest thing about this current crackdown is that he's acting like a despotic, authoritarian military leader who tolerates no pushback."
Mr Trump does not agree with such assessments.
When pressed in the Oval Office why he did not coordinate or inform allies, such as Japan, that he was planning on striking Iran in the first place, for example, he said his approach was the right call.
"One thing, you don't want to signal too much. You know, when we go in - we went in very hard, and we didn't tell anybody about it because we wanted... surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Okay, why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbour, okay?"
