We need today to revive the question General David Petraeus posed after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, launched under fabricated pretexts: “Tell me how this ends.” But we ask it now in a completely different context, as we speak about Iran and a war that seems to be moving without a compass, driven by an excessive confidence in the ability of military force to produce political transformation.

Is it conceivable that US President Donald Trump—with all his bravado—and the Pentagon, with its hardened rhetoric and overwhelming arsenal, do not understand Iran as they open a war against it? Or is this misunderstanding part of a recurring historical pattern in which the United States assumes that force alone can reshape the Middle East?

After weeks of strikes and operations said to be aimed at weakening the Iranian regime and paving the way for internal change, Khamenei’s system remains standing, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has redeployed to tighten control on the ground and prevent any popular movement.

Meanwhile, public sentiment inside Iran has shifted. Crowds that initially welcomed the war in the hope of toppling the regime now reject it, having realised that the destruction is falling on the heads of ordinary Iranians, not on those in power.

Meanwhile, public sentiment inside Iran has shifted. Crowds that initially welcomed the war in the hope of toppling the regime now reject it, having realised that the destruction is falling on the heads of ordinary Iranians, not on those in power.

The phrase, “You have destroyed our industrial, economic, and scientific infrastructure, but you have left our tormentors in place,” is now echoed by Iranians at home and abroad. A group of opposition leaders in London even sent a letter to........

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