As Niccolò Machiavelli pointed out five centuries ago, “wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.” Donald Trump is about to learn that they don’t end when he feels like it, either.

Three weeks into the war he started with Iran, President Trump has made a series of puzzling and contradictory statements about the state of the conflict, and nearly everything he’s said suggests he believes he is in complete command of when and how it will finish. The arrogance, hubris, and narcissistic folly of that belief cannot be overstated.

Trump both insists that the war is already over and that it “will be wrapped up soon.” He’s tried and failed to cajole NATO allies to give him a hand in the Strait of Hormuz, even though he insists the U.S. has “obliterated” Iran and doesn’t need anyone’s help. He both says “we’ve won” and there’s “no reason” for him to declare victory yet. He claims Iran’s regime is already clamoring to negotiate a ceasefire — which he rejects and they deny — while Israel keeps decapitating more of its leadership and Trump says it’s his “honor” to kill them. Last week, Trump said that he would know the war was over “when I feel it … in my bones.”

If Trump soon gets nervous about rising gas prices, realizes the war is a political loser, or simply gets bored and decides he’d rather conquer Cuba, he may attempt to declare victory and draw down U.S. forces in the Middle East. But what if Trump says the war is over, and it just keeps on going anyway?

Machiavelli’s old saying about wars of choice has been born out time and time again by leaders who launched conflicts that spiraled out of their control. Recent U.S. history provides two catastrophic examples of that axiom in the countries to Iran’s east and west.

In 2003, the U.S. defeated Saddam Hussein and occupied Iraq in a matter of weeks, then spent the next eight years, thousands of American lives, and trillions of dollars fighting insurgencies and trying to put the country back together again. In 2001, it took two months to drive the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan, followed by 20 years of guerrilla warfare, failed nation building, and the Taliban’s return to power.

“Mission creep” may already be taking hold in Iran, as the Trump administration realizes they can’t win the kind of victory they were already claiming to have won through air power alone. Though he was briefed on the many risks, Trump apparently believed........

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