Unless Donald Trump finds a way out of his box on Iran, history may come to regard his choice to wage war as a presidency-defining error.
But he has so far avoided one potential dire mistake: massively escalating the conflict past his capacity to control it.
History shows that presidents who intensify wars in pursuit of a way out, or to protect their own prestige or America’s reputation, descend a slippery slope. In Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, they often did so reluctantly, in wars that could no longer be won.
Not for the first time, Trump finds himself at a three-way intersection in a war now being driven by Iran’s refusal to surrender or seriously negotiate.
If diplomacy keeps failing, is he willing to perpetually extend the so-far inconclusive campaign of air strikes, fragile ceasefires, and US and Iranian maritime blockades that rumbles on but doesn’t end the war?
