The author reads Trump’s Sept. 17 “major crossroads” line as the real problem after six-plus months: U.S. force is not the same as an end. Aims have hopped—quick win, talks, sanctions, blockade, strikes—while Washington still wants concessions, Hormuz open, a show of power, no forever war, and less regional load. Those goals pull apart the longer it lasts.

A June 60-day framework (pause fighting, commercial Hormuz, room for a bigger deal) did not stick. Pressure can hurt Iran; it has not produced a political off-ramp. Hormuz disruption is hard even to measure as tankers drop tracking. Reuters/Ipsos: only about a quarter of Americans call the war worthwhile; some aides want it quiet before November. Panetta’s “forever war” warning is cited.

Vietnam is used as political lesson, not battlefield twin: power without a reachable political end; exit gets harder as costs pile. Irony for an “endless wars” brand. Asia attention and resources compete with the Indo-Pacific. Quagmire logic: stay does not equal win; leave has its own price.

On September 17, President Donald Trump said he was approaching a “major crossroads” in the war with Iran: whether to resume large-scale military operations in an effort to bring the conflict to an end. After more than six months of fighting, the statement captured the central problem facing Washington. The United States retains enormous military power, but it still lacks a convincing answer to a more basic question: How does this war end?

That question matters because the conflict is beginning to revive an older American strategic problem. Iran is not Vietnam, and the military circumstances are plainly different. But the danger is that Washington may again........

© Eurasia Review