It’s Way Too Early to Declare Defeat in Iran

(Getty Images) Toggle Table of Contents Contents Contents Share to Twitter Twitter Share to Facebook Facebook Share to LinkedIn LinkedIn Share to E-mail E-mail Print Print The establishment consensus is hardening. President Trump’s war with Iran is the culminating disaster of the most damaging and misguided American foreign policy in history. Iranian leaders are humiliating the U.S., German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned. “Superpower suicide” is how Wendy Sherman, a top Iran negotiator under President Obama and Joe Biden’s deputy secretary of state, described Mr. Trump’s Iran policy to ABC News. As Ms. Sherman sees it, the Iran war has alienated allies, assisted Russia financially, and weakened America’s position vis-à-vis China. For Fareed Zakaria, the question is no longer whether the administration’s policies will backfire but whether the damage can ever be repaired. Critics of the war believe Mr. Trump has worked himself into a trap. The military strikes aimed at decapitating Iran’s leadership brought the most radical elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to power. Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz can’t be broken without a politically unsustainable ground war. Spiking energy prices offered Vladimir Putin a financial windfall just as Russia’s economy was buckling under the strain of sanctions. China gleefully watches America trash its European alliances and deplete munition stocks needed to defend Taiwan. Meanwhile, because the president has done little to prepare the public for a long conflict, Iran has him over a barrel, and he must bribe or beg the Iranians to give him a quick exit from an unwinnable war. Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal. Enjoyed this analysis? Subscribe to Hudson’s newsletters to stay up to date with our latest content. Email See more subscription options Foreign Policy National Security and Defense