>"ough" has at least 9 different possible pronunciations, how is that phonetic?

Does a language stop being phonetic when you have to include other information provided by the rest of the word? I'm not a linguist by any means, but "ough" being pronounced a couple different ways depending how it's used doesn't seem like it'd preclude the language from being considered phonetic in general.

9 is not a couple, unless you're in a very open relationship - which English words might be - but a language stops being phonetic at the point that the mappings between symbols and sounds are no longer clear and reliable. The most phonetic languages have one-to-one mappings with very few exceptions e.g. Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Finnish.

English, on the other hand, has silent letters, inconsistent mappings even within the same word, exceptions, irregularities, and sounds that are represented by multiple letters and spellings.

English is not a phonetic language except in the sense that it does have mappings between sounds and characters, which would make sense if one were to compare it to a wholly written language like Python, but not any human language.