In January 2026, flushed with the swift, covert removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration rolled the dice on a far more volatile and deeply rooted adversary. President Donald Trump operated under the seductive assumption that a high-tech, stealth excursion against the Islamic Republic of Iran would yield a parallel, cost-free triumph. Yet, months into the conflict sparked by the administration’s aggressive “Maximum Pressure 2.0” campaign and escalated via Operation Epic Fury, Washington finds itself trapped in a familiar, agonizing quagmire. Tactical brilliance has once again been mistaken for strategic victory. As Winston Churchill famously observed in the wake of early wartime triumphs, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. […]