from 21st Century Wire:
For six months, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have insisted that the United States won its war against Iran. They spoke of destroyed capabilities, decisive success and overwhelming military victory. Their language grew more triumphant as the evidence moved in the opposite direction. Yet, Iran did not surrender, and did not abandon its nuclear programme or accept Washington’s terms. It continued to strike American positions, threaten regional energy infrastructure and contest control of the Strait of Hormuz.
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American soldiers have died in a war they did not choose, and Congress did not authorise. Eighteen American service members have been killed and more than 750 wounded. By July, Hegseth acknowledged that direct American military expenditure had reached $37.5 billion. Washington was already seeking tens of billions more to continue operations and replace depleted weapons. These were not the costs of the clean and conclusive victory advertised by the White House. They were the consequences of an imperial war launched without a credible endgame.
This was an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign state. It was launched without authorisation from the United Nations Security Council and without a demonstrated Iranian armed attack that could justify it as an act of self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Washington and Tel Aviv presented the assault as a limited response to an imminent nuclear danger. The scale and selection of their targets told a different story.
That admission has now come from an unexpected quarter. Writing in The Atlantic, Robert Kagan reaches a conclusion that the Trump administration has lacked the courage and intellectual honesty to acknowledge. Iran faced the combined military power of the United States and Israel and survived. Its cities and strategic infrastructure were bombed, much of its senior leadership was assassinated and enormous damage was inflicted, yet Tehran made none of the concessions demanded of it. In failing to force Iran into submission, Washington exposed both the limits of American power and the fragility of the regional order built to contain the Islamic Republic.
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