WAR is merely the continuation of politics with other means”, is a time-tested dictum of Prussian General and strategist Clausewitz implying that, when negotiations and diplomacy fail, war is used to achieve political goals, ensuring that it remains subordinate to political reason.

Nevertheless, dispassionate analysis reveals that the USA and Israel’s war against Iran did not synch well with this dictum. The USA’s leadership appears to have failed to correctly conceive various phases of war. Starting from finding a plausible reason to accurately reading the global geopolitical and geo-economic environment to setting achievable political and military objectives to clearly defining politico-military strategy to defining a notion of victory to exit the conflict on a favorable note. It could not correctly map the strengths and weaknesses of the Iranian military potential, envision contingency plans, and measure the likely cost of war in various domains.

The USA’s intelligence agencies had clearly stated before the start of the war that, Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities were not ‘weeks away’ from making a nuclear bomb and that they had ‘no evidence of an imminent Iranian threat’ to the USA or its facilities across the Middle East. Conversely, according to the famous political scientist John Mearsheimer, President Trump was persuaded and trapped........

© Pakistan Observer