All conflicts led by the West since the “war on terror” described in the aftermath of 9/11 have resulted in either a stalemate or defeat. Tactical successes on the battlefield have never translated into lasting strategic results in terms of security and stability – neither for the United States nor for the region in question.
If the coalition led by the Americans in Iraq in 2003 quickly overthrew the dictator Saddam Hussein, it then got bogged down and lost a war against various violent non-state actors. These groups, by their nature, are organized to last and persevere, outside the binary concepts of victory and defeat prevalent in the West.
Twenty years have passed, and here are the United States of 2026 again embroiled in a war in the Middle East that they neither master nor understand. The American President, Donald Trump, found himself drawn into this strategic disaster by an Israeli Prime Minister who exploits ongoing crises and organized chaos. Somewhere between magical thinking and interventionist neoconservative dogmatism, the strategists of Tel Aviv and Washington are realizing that they have, in fact, engaged in a war against a militia.
