Beyond the deeply sobering reality that a man as impulsive and strategically superficial as Donald Trump wields extraordinary power – and has now used it not merely to widen destruction against one country but to trigger instability across an already fractured region and send tremors through the global economy – several new strategic facts have surfaced, each carrying consequences far beyond the battlefield.

Within the US itself, the military, political and institutional landscape has received an exceptional shock. First, this war has reopened the question of presidential war powers. A president who escalated militarily while brushing aside caution within sections of the military establishment has forced Washington back into a debate unresolved since Iraq and Afghanistan: how much unchecked authority should reside in one individual when the consequences extend across continents?

This war was unpopular from the outset. It was not sold to the American public as a national necessity but increasingly perceived as a war entered under Israeli strategic pressure and political framing. That perception matters because once a war begins without domestic legitimacy, every setback magnifies scrutiny. Second, this conflict has exposed not merely policy failure but strategic ignorance at the highest level. Iran was approached as though it were a conventional target that could be rapidly degraded through superior firepower, technological dominance and intimidation.

Yet Iran is not Iraq of 2003, nor Libya of 2011. It is a state shaped by four decades of sanctions, war conditioning, asymmetric doctrine and layered deterrence. Washington appears once again to have underestimated how a heavily pressured nation develops strategic patience, dispersed command structures and resilience under sustained attack.

Third, the American media landscape is under renewed pressure because this war has collided with domestic dissent. When senior officials suggest that sections of the media suffer from anti-presidential bias because they are not singing a victory chorus, the language itself reveals insecurity in wartime narrative control. Trump’s repeated attacks on major outlets form part of an attempt to delegitimise scrutiny during war. The larger democratic question is unavoidable: can a country wage external war while narrowing internal dissent without weakening its own institutional credibility?

Fourth, the war has reopened the larger question of American identity: what now constitutes ‘Make America Great Again’? Many within Trump’s own political base, including conservative isolationists, increasingly see this war as the opposite of strategic prudence. Diplomacy was abandoned with remarkable speed. For many Americans, fatigued by decades of intervention,........

© The Friday Times