Less than a year ago, US President Donald Trump gave a speech in the Middle East in which he excoriated his predecessors for their habit of launching “forever wars” in that region. Alluding to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 in particular, he accused them of “intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” with the result that they “wrecked far more nations than they built.”

And here is Trump now, intervening in a complex society that he does not understand: “The hour of your freedom is at hand,” he told the Iranian people in announcing the start of what appears to be a massive, indeed maximalist, US-Israeli campaign against the regime in Tehran. The Iranians are already returning fire, shooting at targets linked to America across the Gulf region.

This is not a surgical and limited strike like Operation Midnight Hammer in June. This is war........

© Bloomberg