None of the predicted scenarios have come about. The conflict is rattling energy markets. There are already forecasts of a “rare global economic recession” in the case of prolonged war. Donald Trump has failed to recruit European and Gulf allies to take part in the offensive or in the effort to reopen the strait of Hormuz. And the Iranian regime remains unvanquished, inflicting rising costs in US military equipment and personnel.
These are all misreadings based on over-confidence in the power of the American will. When the attack on Iran was launched, cheerleaders became gripped with the intoxicating thrill of an American-made world, again.
The first mistake was in underestimating Iran’s appetite and capability for asymmetric warfare.
The second was in the bizarre expectation that Iran would not deploy its most valuable weapon, closing the strait of Hormuz and exacting an even higher cost for the war.
But all these miscalculations flow from the one basic error: the failure to understand that the Iranian regime, for all the denunciations you might level at it, has a huge capacity for pain, and for prolonged escalation without a clear scenario of military victory against a superpower, something the American regime finds inconceivable.
In this regard, the US has been lulled into a sense that all roads lead to surrender, either through an embrace of the benefits of American power, or capitulation to its supremacy.
Iran’s proxy groups, from Hezbollah to the Houthis, are proof of how much relevance Iran can maintain far beyond its borders, in a way that advances its interests and prevents outcomes that weaken or isolate it even further.
What Trump is up against is an adversary that he does not understand because he is ignorant, but also because it is an anomaly – a country that has for decades constructed a domestic and regional framework, and an entire ideological and intellectual one, where success is about maintaining viability on its own terms in the face of American hegemony.
