The war may not yet be fully over, but if it returns, it will be only for a brief interregnum, allowing Donald Trump to declare victory and announce the mission over. It will surely entail increased Iranian losses of lives and treasure, but it will be the off-ramp that Trump had sought a few days into the war, and Iran had refused to hand it to him. At a cost, Iran announced to the world that it was unwinnable. The age of the middle power had arrived. Most international observers had made the point that Trump was in the wrong war against the wrong country in pursuit of the wrong aims. History, geography, the environment and civilisational proclivity say a lot about an intended adversary. Knowing them before an adventure can save from blunderous embarrassment.

Could the US not have won a full victory, given that there can be various definitions of it? The US has enough in its tank to achieve what finally became the full definition of victory, say, in Japan, Korea or Iraq. But one, it would have called for another kind of war, of which there is neither an appetite nor the need, and in cost-benefit analysis, it would not deliver the goods as efficiently as can be achieved through other means. Hence, the desperation in the US to somehow exit a war that failed to deliver the intended results within the planned resources. Could Iran have helped end the war sooner? It knew it could not win. Surely, but held out sturdily even at serious expense to itself. It gave the regime salvation and redemption from the brewing vitriol of the Iranian people against it. If the US had miscalculated strategically, Iran held on to conflict as a godsend and a recipe out of its homegrown predicament. How long........

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