分类： politics

Nearly every strategic objective the United States laid out for its current conflict against Iran has failed to materialize, according to a leading scholar of protracted US military engagements. No popular uprising has unseated Iran’s ruling establishment, hardline leadership has merely reshuffled rather than fallen, Tehran’s missile and drone capabilities continue to strike targets across the Middle East, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent global energy prices soaring. Most notably, in direct contradiction of former US President Donald Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender, Iran has outright rejected a 15-point US-backed ceasefire proposal. What has caused such a sweeping deviation from Washington’s initial war plans?

In an analysis republished from *The Conversation*, Charles Walldorf, professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University, argues the core issue is what he terms the “trap of asymmetric resolve.” This dynamic unfolds when a militarily dominant power with limited stakes in a conflict enters war against a far smaller, weaker state whose entire governing system hangs in the balance. When the weaker side possesses near-unwavering commitment to victory, overcoming that determination becomes exponentially harder – and often nearly impossible – for the stronger power.

“For Iran, the Islamic Republic’s very existence is on the line, a stakes Washington can never match in this conflict,” Walldorf explains. “That existential threat gives Tehran overwhelming incentives to maintain resistance and deploy highly effective countermeasures to wear down US advances.”

This pattern of asymmetric conflict has repeated throughout military history, dating back to the sixth century B.C., when a massive invasion force led by Persian Emperor Darius I was halted by a much smaller, deeply determined Scythian army. The lopsided standoff ultimately ended in a humiliating retreat for the Persian Empire. In the modern era, the United States has repeatedly fallen victim to this same trap.

The Vietnam War stands as one of the clearest modern examples. Over eight years of brutal conflict, an estimated 1.1 million North Vietnamese fighters and civilians lost their lives, compared to 58,000 US troops. Despite this massive casualty disparity, North Vietnam’s unyielding commitment to unification ultimately overwhelmed US willingness to sustain the war. After years of costly fighting, the US withdrew, and North Vietnam secured full victory over South Vietnam in 1975.

A near identical dynamic played out decades later in Afghanistan. The US ousted the Taliban regime in 2001, installed a Western-aligned government, and built a 300,000-strong Afghan national military backed by unlimited US firepower. Over 20 years of conflict, roughly 84,000 Taliban fighters were killed, compared to just 2,400 US service members. Yet the Taliban’s relentless commitment to retaking power eventually outlasted US political will. The US signed a withdrawal deal in 2020, pulled all remaining troops out in 2021, and the Taliban retook full control of the country within weeks.

This pattern is not unique to the US. The Soviet Union suffered an identical humiliating defeat in its 9-year Afghanistan occupation in the 1980s, despite suffering far fewer total casualties than the Afghan resistance. Post-World War II France likewise lost protracted asymmetric conflicts in Vietnam and Algeria, despite holding massive military advantages over independence fighters.

Today, that same asymmetry of resolve is playing out in the US-Iran war. Unlike the 12-day 2025 limited conflict that targeted only Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure, the current campaign has explicitly targeted the survival of Iran’s ruling government, with targeted assassinations of top leaders and open calls for popular uprising.

Tehran has followed through on pre-war warnings to retaliate across the region. Iran has launched strikes against Israeli targets, US military bases across the Middle East, and aligned Arab Gulf states, while drastically cutting commercial shipping access through the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s busiest energy chokepoint. Iran has taken far heavier losses than the US in the conflict: as of mid-March, more than 5,000 Iranian military personnel and 1,500 civilians have been killed, compared to 13 US service members. Even so, Tehran has refused to back down, declaring on March 10 that “We will determine when the war ends.”

This unyielding resistance has caught the Trump administration off guard. Before the war began, Trump openly questioned why Iran would not cave to US demands, and he has since acknowledged that regime change – a core opening war goal – is now a “very big hurdle.” This disconnect stems from misleading pre-war messaging to the American public: Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed in January that Iran was weaker than it had ever been, with no intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the US mainland, a crippled nuclear program, and fewer regional allies than at any point in modern history. A March 6 Marist poll reflected this narrative, with 55% of Americans saying they viewed Iran as a minor or nonexistent threat.

As Iran’s resilience has become impossible to ignore, US public opinion has turned sharply against the war. This shifting sentiment poses a unique challenge for democratic leaders, who face electoral consequences for maintaining unpopular conflicts. Today, the Iran war is among the least popular US conflicts since World War II, with consistent polling showing roughly 60% of Americans oppose continued military engagement. This mirrors the collapse of public support that drove past US withdrawals from asymmetric quagmires in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

While pre-war Iran faced widespread domestic protests that weakened public support for the government, a combination of a brutal government crackdown and a “rally around the flag” nationalist response to foreign invasion has muted domestic discontent, eliminating the domestic pressure for compromise that Washington faces.

Looking ahead, the Trump administration has attempted to manage the impact of asymmetric resolve by framing the operation as limited in scope and duration. To calm jittery financial markets and reassure war-weary voters, Trump has repeatedly promised a short conflict and delayed large-scale offensive strikes to make space for negotiations – claims that Iran has not corroborated.

Walldorf notes that history offers stronger powers two clear paths forward when facing a more determined weaker adversary. The first is to give in to the hubris of military power and escalate the conflict, a path that led to decades-long quagmires in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The second is to wind down hostilities, accept limited gains, and seek a negotiated end to the conflict.

Past leaders have overwhelmingly chosen escalation, convinced that a small increase in military force will tip the balance. President Barack Obama fell into this trap when he ordered a surge of 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan, incorrectly predicting the deployment would break the Taliban’s resistance. Despite public signals that he wants to exit the conflict, Trump could still take the same path: additional US troops are already deploying to the Persian Gulf, and B-52 bombers have begun flying combat sorties over Iranian territory for the first time in the current war.

History shows that escalating against a determined foe like Iran will come at massive cost to the United States. But the second path – de-escalation and negotiation – remains open to Trump. The president has already chosen this route twice before: he signed the 2020 deal with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan war rather than escalating, and he walked away from the 2025 Yemen air campaign when he realized defeating the Houthi movement would require a costly ground invasion.

Trump could choose the same exit strategy for Iran: declare that core US goals have been met, withdraw offensive forces, and enter sustained, good-faith negotiations to end the conflict. Any deal would require US concessions, such as restoring shipping access guarantees through the Strait of Hormuz or rolling back some crippling economic sanctions on Iran. While Trump may be reluctant to accept these compromises, polling shows a majority of American voters support this outcome. After decades of costly quagmires, Walldorf argues, few Americans are eager to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam and Afghanistan in the Middle East.

A growing transatlantic crisis has erupted over the US-led war on Iran, with major European allies rejecting Washington’s demands to join the conflict and pushing forward independent diplomatic efforts to resolve the closure of the critical Strait of Hormuz. The rift has escalated to the highest levels, with US President Donald Trump openly lambasting European allies for their refusal to back the conflict, threatening to withdraw the United States from the 75-year-old NATO alliance, while the United Kingdom has moved forward with a landmark diplomatic summit excluding the US to de-escalate the crisis.

On Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that London would host talks bringing together 35 nations to pursue a diplomatic solution to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic chokepoint through which roughly one-quarter of the world’s global oil supplies transit. The initiative builds on earlier joint efforts by the UK and France to secure unimpeded safe passage for commercial shipping in the waterway, which has been closed amid the ongoing conflict. Starmer emphasized that the gathered nations will collaborate to evaluate every viable diplomatic and political pathway to restore freedom of navigation, secure the release of trapped vessels and seafarers, and restart the flow of critical global commodities through the strait.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps pushed back on the same day, reaffirming that the strait will remain closed to what it describes as the “enemies of this nation,” and asserting full, unchallenged control over the waterway. This statement contradicts repeated claims from Trump that a negotiated end to the war is imminent.

Trump’s aggressive rhetoric toward Europe began a day earlier, when he launched a blistering tirade against European leaders who have refused to join the US-Israeli war on Iran. He called European leaders “cowards,” told them to “go get your own oil,” and warned that the US would no longer come to their defense, stating “you will have to start learning how to fight for yourselves, because the US won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”

These remarks came amid confirmed reports that multiple major European nations have restricted access for US military aircraft involved in the Iran campaign to their airspace and military bases. On Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s socialist government, which has publicly condemned the war as illegal, formally closed Spanish airspace to all US aircraft participating in operations against Iran. Italy has also followed suit, labeling the conflict illegal and denying US warplanes permission to refuel and stage from the key Sigonella air base in Sicily. France, meanwhile, issued a formal denial of Trump’s claims that it had blocked US military overflights of its territory.

In a revealing development, The Telegraph reported Wednesday that Trump is actively considering a full US withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, describing the alliance as nothing more than a “paper tiger” in comments to the British outlet. Secretary of State Marco Rubio amplified this position in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity Tuesday evening, arguing that the alliance must be fundamentally reevaluated. “If now we have reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases, that in fact we can no longer use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one-way street,” Rubio added.

Founded in 1949 to counter Soviet influence in Europe, NATO faces an unprecedented existential crisis from Trump’s threats. Any US withdrawal would require congressional approval, a high bar after lawmakers passed 2023 legislation explicitly requiring congressional consent for any US exit from the alliance, a measure directly drafted in response to Trump’s earlier threats to leave the pact.

Starmer, responding to Trump’s comments on NATO, reaffirmed the UK’s unwavering commitment to the alliance during a Wednesday press conference. “NATO is the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen,” the Labour leader said. “It has kept us safe for many decades.”

“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I’m going to act in the British national interest,” Starmer continued. “And that’s why I have been absolutely clear that this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it. But I’m equally clear that when it comes to defense and security, and our economic future, we have to have closer ties with Europe.”

Critics have pushed back on Starmer’s claim that the UK is not a participant in the conflict, pointing out that his government continues to allow US forces to use British military bases to launch strikes against Iran. UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski has called on Starmer to demonstrate genuine leadership by ending all British involvement in the war and canceling King Charles III’s upcoming state visit to the United States.

This is not the first time NATO has faced deep internal rifts over US military action. In 1986, France, Italy and Spain denied US overflight access for Ronald Reagan’s bombing of Libya, and a far deeper split opened in 2003 over George W. Bush’s illegal regime-change war in Iraq, which split European allies between participating and opposing nations. Anti-war critics have long argued that NATO has been obsolete since the end of the Cold War 35 years ago, and that its expansion eastward helped provoke Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while supporters maintain the alliance has been the foundation of post-WWII European peace and prosperity.

Starmer’s call for closer alignment with Europe comes a decade after the UK’s 2016 Brexit referendum, amid growing public regret over the decision to leave the European Union. A September 2025 poll by Best for Britain found more than 60% of respondents now view Brexit as a mistake, with only 11% calling the departure a success.

The escalating tensions come as conflicting claims emerged this week over a potential ceasefire. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Wednesday claiming Iran “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” — a claim immediately denied by official Iranian media. Trump doubled down on his hardline position, echoing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mantra that the US is “negotiating with bombs,” stating: “We will consider [a ceasefire] when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”

The human cost of the 33-day US-Israeli bombing campaign has been steep. Iranian officials confirm nearly 2,000 Iranians have been killed. A coalition of international human rights groups reported Friday that nearly 1,500 of those killed were civilians, including 217 children. A large share of these civilian deaths came from a late February US cruise missile strike on a girls’ school in Minab that killed approximately 175 people.

During a Wednesday press briefing with reporters in Washington D.C., a senior Trump administration official tasked with United Nations reform laid out the White House’s stance on the global body, confirming that President Donald Trump still endorses the UN’s core founding missions while pushing for sweeping changes to help the institution exceed its long-unrealized potential.

This positioning comes amid well-documented friction between the Trump White House and the UN, after the administration cut U.S. funding earlier this year to several UN-affiliated bodies, including the UN Register of Conventional Arms and the Global Counterterrorism Forum — initiatives that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support across successive U.S. administrations. The Trump administration also implemented further withdrawals from UN-led climate action programs, building on its first-term policy of pulling out of the Paris Agreement.

Jeff Bartos, the U.S. Ambassador for UN Management and Reform — a political appointee confirmed to the post in July with no prior formal diplomatic experience — emphasized that the administration’s reform push aligns with the president’s core belief that the UN holds untapped potential. “It’s our responsibility, under the president’s leadership, to help the UN reach and exceed that potential,” Bartos told Middle East Eye in response to a question during the briefing.

As a partial gesture of commitment to the institution, Bartos confirmed the administration has disbursed $159 million toward the UN’s regular assessed budget, alongside an additional $2 billion in pooled funding for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. However, the full financial picture remains deeply strained: when Trump took office 15 months ago, Washington halted all scheduled payments to the UN, leaving the institution — which relies heavily on U.S. contributions to operate — facing a severe liquidity crisis with more than $3.5 billion in unpaid U.S. arrears. This backlog is not unique to the current Trump term; the prior Biden administration also accumulated significant unpaid dues during its time in office.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly warned that the institution risks total financial collapse if the U.S. does not resolve its outstanding arrears.

Bartos pushed back on criticism of the funding hold, saying his team has worked “very, very effectively” with UN leadership and other member states to advance targeted reforms within the UN Secretariat, the administrative body that oversees the institution’s daily operations. The core of the U.S. reform agenda, he argued, is refocusing the UN on its foundational mission of global peace and security, with major changes proposed for long-running peacekeeping operations.

“The idea that missions can go on for 20, 30, 40, 50, even 70 years is unacceptable,” Bartos said. He argued all new and existing peacekeeping deployments must include clear strategic objectives, measurable performance milestones, and a predefined exit strategy to prevent open-ended, costly missions that outlive their purpose.

One immediate cost-saving reform the administration is pushing changes the way the UN reimburses member states for peacekeeping equipment. Bartos explained the new policy would end reimbursement for unused gear, a shift projected to save the institution tens of millions of dollars annually. “We’re deeply grateful to the countries and the troops who serve in these missions, but we can’t keep paying for equipment that isn’t being used,” he noted.

Bartos recently returned from a field visit to peacekeeping operations in the Central African Republic, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he said he was impressed by the leadership quality of on-the-ground mission command. He even raised questions about the UN’s processes for selecting senior peacekeeping leadership during the trip.

His positive on-the-ground assessment comes amid heightened scrutiny of UN peacekeeping, however. Just days before the briefing, three UN peacekeepers were killed amid Israel’s escalating ground invasion of southern Lebanon. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed open hostility toward the UN as an institution, which has repeatedly accused Israel of violating international law in multiple regional conflicts and ongoing military operations in the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have also deliberately targeted UN facilities in Gaza during its ongoing military campaign, killing multiple UN civilian staff based in the enclave.

When questioned about the Trump administration’s pledge to crack down on what it calls “anti-Israel bias” within the UN system, Bartos launched a sharp attack on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who was sanctioned by the U.S. after she labeled Israel’s military assault on Gaza a genocide and published a report naming U.S. corporations allegedly complicit in potential war crimes. Bartos did not name Albanese explicitly during his comments.

“The UN has this remarkable global brand on the humanitarian side, but it’s doing an incredible disservice — almost like self-sabotage — to allow this type of unaccountable special rapporteur to run around wreaking havoc and spewing hatred,” Bartos said. “I strongly encourage UN leadership to finally put an end to this poison that others are injecting into what is otherwise a remarkable achievement for the institution on the humanitarian side.”

Looking ahead to the upcoming election of a new UN Secretary-General later this year, Bartos said the U.S. is open to considering all candidate nominations, as long as they commit to implementing the broad package of reforms Washington is pushing. However, recent developments suggest one leading candidate could face a U.S. veto.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio obtained by development outlet Devex, Republican members of Congress urged the Trump administration to use its Security Council veto power to block the candidacy of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Lawmakers cited Bachelet’s long-held pro-choice position on abortion rights and her failure to confront China over the treatment of the Uyghur minority — an issue the first Trump administration labeled a genocide in 2020. This is not the first time the U.S. and Israel have sought to block Bachelet from a senior UN role; the two countries unsuccessfully tried to block her confirmation as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2018. Last month, Bachelet lost the support of her home country after Chile’s new right-wing president, José Antonio Kast — an open admirer of Trump who was endorsed by him during his election campaign — withdrew Chile’s backing for her bid.

Against a backdrop of escalating regional conflict and growing religious nationalist rhetoric within Israeli society, a group of Israeli army reservists has independently developed and distributed a Temple-themed board game to fellow service members ahead of the 2026 Passover holiday, the Israeli military has confirmed. First reported by Israeli journalist Or Kashti in a social media post on March 31, the game, titled *From Egypt to Jerusalem*, centers on a core objective: guiding players from a starting point representing Egypt across a game board dotted with religious, national, and military imagery to reach the site of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The game’s instructions open by inviting players to “choose a route from Egypt” and advance along the path toward Jerusalem, closing with the traditional Passover refrain “Next year in Jerusalem” that anchors the holiday’s liturgy. Passover, one of the most sacred observances in the Jewish calendar, commemorates the biblical narrative of the Israelites’ escape from enslavement in ancient Egypt to seek freedom in the land of Israel, which this year began on the evening of Wednesday last week, coinciding with the game’s distribution. As players move across the board, they land on “revival” spaces adorned with Jewish and Israeli national symbols alongside military graphics, and can draw special cards marked “miracles and heroism.” Additional gameplay challenges included whimsical but politically charged tasks such as standing on one foot to share a positive recent event for the Israeli people, and performing a skit of a phone call between the biblical Pharaoh and Iran’s president, according to details shared in Kashti’s post. The game board also bears the logo of the Har Tzion battalion in the IDF’s Jerusalem brigade, indicating formal organizational connections between the creators and the unit. But not all spaces on the board carry positive framing: other squares depict figures labeled as historical and modern enemies of Israel, ranging from ancient adversaries like the Babylonians and Crusaders to contemporary political leaders. Those named include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, assassinated Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, a Hamas fighter, and recently killed Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The game’s text echoes another core Passover liturgical phrase: “In every generation they rise up to destroy us,” a line that has been recontextualized for modern political messaging in recent years. When contacted for comment by Middle East Eye, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson clarified that the game was not an official military initiative. “It was created by reservists on their personal initiative,” the spokesperson said, distancing the institution from the project. The emergence of this privately made military-themed religious game comes amid a well-documented rise in religious nationalist rhetoric and symbolism across Israeli society and within the military, against the backdrop of the ongoing 2025 U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran. Just one month prior, during the Jewish holiday of Purim, many Israelis framed the ongoing conflict through a religious lens, drawing parallels between the war against Iran and the biblical Purim narrative of overcoming a Persian threat to Jewish communities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly integrated Passover religious imagery into public remarks about the war against Iran. In comments last month ahead of the holiday, Netanyahu declared: “On the eve of this Festival of Freedom, Israel is stronger than ever.” He went on to rework the iconic Passover line cited in the board game: “In every generation they rise up to destroy us, and in this generation, the regime of the ayatollahs made a massive effort to annihilate us, to take over the Middle East, and to threaten the entire world,” he said, adding that the joint U.S.-Israeli assault was “crushing Iran.” He even invoked the biblical story of the ten plagues of Egypt, stating “We have dealt ten plagues upon the Axis of Evil.” At the time of reporting, the scale of the game’s distribution remains unconfirmed. The development also arrives alongside ongoing shifts in the long-standing status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, a site sacred to both Muslims (as one of Islam’s holiest sites) and Jews (who refer to it as the Temple Mount, the location of the ancient Jewish First and Second Temples). Last month, Israel extended the closure of the compound, and since far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir took office in 2022, the site has seen a sharp increase in the number of Jewish nationalist visitors and worshippers entering the complex, a practice that violates the decades-old status quo agreement, which restricts Jewish prayer at the site to preserve Muslim administrative control. The increased prominence of religious symbolism within the Israeli military also tracks back to the start of the 2023 Gaza war, with growing reports of religious nationalist messaging among active-duty soldiers. Just last month, a CNN reporting team was detained by Israeli soldiers while covering the establishment of a new unauthorized settler outpost in the Palestinian village of Tayasir in the occupied West Bank. Footage from the encounter captured one soldier openly boasting about plans to take revenge against Palestinians, while a second soldier was seen wearing a patch referencing the Jewish Messiah on his uniform – a practice the Israeli army officially banned for all service members last year. Middle East Eye, which first published this report, provides independent on-the-ground coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.