THE NEW YORK TIMES: President Trump, who promised to “end wars,” not start them, may have fallen into a familiar presidential trap.
No one starts a war expecting it to last forever.
Yet, since Vietnam, American presidents have repeatedly gotten into conflicts that seem like they could last forever, at least until the next president — or the one after that — decides that the expense and political pain are not worth it, declares victory and goes home.
On Iran, President Trump may have fallen into the same trap.
He campaigned for office vowing to end wars, not start them, and to never get involved in a forever war, let alone one in the Middle East. And yet he risks doing so in Iran, his critics say.
The war that Israel and the United States began with such force has alternated between moments of negotiation and military strikes. They have failed so far to reach Mr. Trump’s stated goals of regime change or ending Iran’s nuclear program, while the war has created a new, seemingly intractable problem, bottling up the Strait of Hormuz.
With diplomacy at a dead end, at least for now, a frustrated Mr. Trump finds himself back at war, the cease-fire broken, the strait blocked. The memorandum of understanding he said “achieves everything we set out to accomplish” — despite wildly divergent interpretations of it — is in tatters after less than a month. » | Steven Erlanger | Steven Erlanger, based in Berlin, writes about European and Middle Eastern security and diplomacy. | Thursday, July 16, 2026
ALSO READ:
Iran War Live Updates: U.S. and Iran Exchange Strikes for 5th Straight Day: Though both sides appeared to be digging in, a top Iranian official seemed to leave the door open for a deal, saying, “We must fear neither war nor negotiations.” »
