The US government continues to double down, even as its stubbornness costs it dearly—not only in material terms, but also in geopolitical influence. Washington is rapidly losing power and status in the Middle East, a decline that could produce a wider domino effect, reverberating around the world.

The latest expression of this hubris came from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Speaking at a G20 gathering of finance ministers in Asheville, North Carolina on September 1, Bessent declared that within two years, the Strait of Hormuz would become “a worthless piece of water,” as oil would instead be transported through overland pipelines.

Bessent is now promoting a new narrative that shifts the emphasis from the military war to an economic one. In an August 23 article for the Financial Times, he announced that “an economic D-Day is coming for Iran,” threatening countries that continue to trade with Tehran with severe economic consequences.

This sounds less like a serious foreign-policy strategy than an admission of Washington’s inability to alter the course of the ongoing war.

The deeper failure lies in Washington’s attempt to impose an outdated model of regional domination on a Middle East—and a world—that has fundamentally changed.

Two dominant schools of thought have emerged to explain how Washington found itself in this position.

The first, promoted largely by sections of the US media, former officials, and retired military commanders, argues that the war on Iran was a mistake from the outset and that Washington lacked the military and logistical preparedness necessary to wage it.

The second explanation places Iran at the center. It argues that Washington fundamentally underestimated Iran’s military capabilities, political resilience, and regional reach, treating the country as though it were another Venezuela that could be subdued through sanctions, threats, and limited military pressure.

Both explanations contain elements of truth. Neither, however, provides the deeper, less defensive, and more historically grounded understanding required to explain the scale of the present American failure.

John J. Mearsheimer, the prominent American political scientist and international relations scholar, has been among the boldest critics of the US war.

“Trump is trapped and has no way out,” Mearsheimer said on July 15, reiterating an argument he had advanced repeatedly since the beginning of the war. “All of this is to say that the decision to attack Iran on 28 February 2026 is one of the greatest blunders in the history of US foreign policy,” he added.

Mearsheimer, like Jeffrey Sachs, Scott Ritter, and other critical American voices, often—and understandably—analyzes these “great blunders” from a US-centered perspective. For millions of people in the Middle East, however, this collective analysis is not an intellectual or strategic exercise. It describes their everyday reality. They have lived through these catastrophic miscalculations and paid the human cost of US intransigence, militarism, and political failure.

The history of US foreign policy in the Middle East offers countless examples of this destructive pattern. Washington’s support for Israel—the region’s greatest destabilizing force—remains the most enduring example.

Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and other........

© Common Dreams