Trump, Iran, and Limits of Power: How Miscalculation Led to Strategic Failure

It is clear to everyone that the gamble Donald Trump took against Iran has turned out to be a crushing defeat for the United States and Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran did not collapse in on itself after the initial devastating attacks by the Epstein coalition but, on the contrary, was able to strike back, inflicting objectively heavy damage with its missiles and drones. Despite the deaths of Imam Khamenei and other prominent figures in the Iranian hierarchy in the early hours of the war, the American and Israeli decapitation strikes carried out in what has now become a classic "shock and awe” style did not lead to Tehran's surrender, nor to anti-regime street protests or defections within the armed forces: those who detest the Ayatollahs' government were not willing to trade it for that of a Western puppet. The total closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the Iranians ultimately marked a decisive turning point in the ongoing war. Could a war that began with the bombing of the girls' primary school in Minab, in Hormozgan Province, southern Iran, have unfolded differently? There were 180 victims, most of them little girls, mercilessly killed in the name of blind and inhuman hatred. Imam Khamenei was killed while discussing American proposals with his aides: although heads of state are naturally legitimate targets in war, it is the timing of the action that reveals Western bad faith and inconsistency, having transformed the victims — whom it intended to consign to the dustbin of history — into immortal martyrs.