And not merely by armchair military historians like me, but by the intelligence analysts who were reporting directly to the White House:
Days before going to war with Iran in February, President Trump summoned his intelligence chief to the Oval Office to ask whether a full-on assault was a good idea. Iran was at its weakest point in decades, senior aides and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him, providing Trump the rare opportunity to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program and bolster his legacy as a peacemaker. The question was whether a large-scale attack would work and possibly topple the regime.
Then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard outlined assessments from America’s intelligence apparatus. According to people familiar with the meeting, she told Trump that killing Iran’s supreme leader would likely usher in a more hard-line regime open to acquiring nuclear weapons. Tehran would rush to close the Strait of Hormuz, destabilizing the global energy market. And it would strike U.S. forces and partners in the Middle East, prompting questions about American resolve and reliability with allies.
Trump ordered an attack that began on Feb. 28 and urged Iranians to overthrow their government. Nearly six months later, a conflict the president promised would be over within six weeks is continuing without a clear end in sight. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls the country and fires on commercial ships in the strait. The regime led by Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader who succeeded his slain father, shows no signs of capitulating.
That being said, I don’t think the historical consequences of the failure were adequately foreseen by the intelligence analysts. The situation is considerably worse than The Wall Street Journal is painting it. China now knows, without even having to risk testing it for themselves, that the US Navy is a paper tiger and that the USA cannot even hope to rival its industrial power anymore. The fundamental weakness of the USA has now been exposed, and not only do its two main rivals know it, but everyone else does too.
This is why Russia is now openly threatening the UK. Russia is no longer concerned about what the US will do if it attacks a NATO ally. It’s why the Gulf states are developing alternative security arrangements, because they know that Iran is now a more important regional power than the USA. And it’s the reason for the Mecca agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey.
The Pax Americana is over. And rightly or wrongly, mostly wrongly since he wasn’t responsible for all of the historical factors, Trump will get the historical blame for it since it happened both on his watch and as a direct result of his actions.
Even the neocons are now openly admitting the complete catastrophe of their 30-year “bomb Iran” campaign, as Robert Kagan’s new article in The Atlantic demonstrates:
For years, Iran confronted a balance of power in the Middle East that tilted against it. The region was dominated by a hostile American superpower, a nuclear-armed and militarily superior Israel, and significant local actors—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates—that were strategically and economically aligned with the United States. Today finds Iran in entirely new circumstances. It has gone head-to-head with the superpower and Israel, withstood a pounding from their most advanced weapons, and more than survived. As a result, Iran has, with American help, completely reconfigured the power structure of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The dominant power in the region going forward will be Iran, not the U.S. or Israel. Neighboring countries are already making their adjustments to this new reality. More distant powers will too. For years, the world has been dealing with an Iran constrained. It will now discover what Iran unleashed looks like.