Since the Taliban forced the United States out of Afghanistan in August 2021, the regional order that had prevailed since 1991 has begun to unravel. Five years later, Hamas’s attack on Israel, the war with Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen are among the clearest consequences of that withdrawal.
At the time, international observers—particularly in Moscow—interpreted the abandonment of Kabul as a sign of weakness on the part of the Joe Biden administration. Six months later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Hours of doubt and uncertainty ultimately gave way to a clear conclusion: NATO would not enter the war to defend Kyiv, but it would provide economic and military support to Ukraine’s besieged and inexperienced president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
During his second term, President Donald Trump quickly moved away from the “I will keep you out of foreign wars” promise he repeated throughout his 2024 campaign. Instead came a more cautious formulation: “First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war,” as he put it in a CNN interview when his approval ratings were shaken by the war with Iran.
Trump promised to bring down the regime. He did. So what, exactly, is left to accomplish in Iran?
But Americans’ growing dissatisfaction with the administration’s handling of the conflict is not necessarily rooted in opposition to the war itself. It stems from a more basic question: Who exactly are we fighting?
Negotiations between Washington and Tehran have taken on an increasingly surreal quality. One day, a ceasefire is announced; the next, it collapses. The Strait of Hormuz is reopened for a few hours, only for Trump to later declare the territory American. And, perhaps most troublingly, there is little indication that this cycle is about to change.
The United States can no longer guarantee the security of its allies in the Middle East. Repeated attacks and joint offensives with Israel across the region are increasingly weighing on a government already approaching the midterm elections.
Whatever the outcome of the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, the war’s biggest loser already has a name.
