President Trump is not only failing to learn from history. He is also failing to learn from what is happening right now.

This was not a small tactical mistake. Trump walked into a war with no exit plan, then realised too late that Iran had set the battlefield for a war of exhaustion, not a quick victory. Washington is now stuck between two costly choices: it cannot pull back because that would look like failure, and it cannot go deeper because that risks a long war with no guaranteed results.

As the war moves into its third week, harder questions are rising inside Washington: what does “victory” even mean; and how can it be achieved while Iran still holds the strongest pressure point in this confrontation: the Strait of Hormuz?

The Strait of Hormuz is Trump’s weak point

Trump’s biggest miscalculation was believing that firepower alone could force Iran to surrender before Iran turned Hormuz into a global pressure tool. Reality is different. Control of the strait is not an American decision. It is an Iranian one.

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And the worst part is that disruption does not require a large army in the traditional sense. One incident, one strike (by an Iranian soldier on a small boat, with an RPG on his shoulder), or even a rise in perceived risk can panic markets and push up oil prices, shipping insurance, and transport costs.

That puts Washington in a double trap:

If it declares “mission accomplished” and........

© Middle East Monitor