More US combat deaths and a widening reescalation of the Iran war are putting a new spin on a long unanswered question: What is President Donald Trump’s endgame and how will he deliver it?
From its initial shots, this war has been under-explained by the administration. The return to something like full-scale aerial war after a ninth consecutive night of US air raids is no exception.
The president seems to be bombing again because the personal, political and economic costs of Iran’s major win so far — its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz — are impossible for him to accept. But he has yet to tell Americans why he believes this tactic may be more successful than it was before.
Meanwhile, the sharply increased tempo of US bombing and Iran’s broadened retaliation — the attack that killed two US service members and left one missing last week was in Jordan — risks pulling the entire region back into the conflagration.
Jordan, a US ally that lies east of Israel and west of Iraq, is more distant to Iran than US targets in the Gulf states. But Tehran’s success in hitting US troops in the country shows that it retains lethal capacities despite weeks of American attacks. On Sunday, Iran accused the US of attacking an under-construction nuclear power plant and warned of an appropriate response. Israel said it was ready to immediately resume combat if attacked.
