How Trump’s war on Iran could succeed — or go disastrously wrong

Pete Hegseth on Monday showed the bombast typical of the shock and awe start of America’s wars as he promised victory over Iran.

“We will finish this on ‘America first’ conditions of President Trump’s choosing, nobody else’s, as it should be,” the defense secretary said at the Pentagon.

“This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing,” President George W. Bush told a nation traumatized by the 9/11 attacks. Shortly afterward, he took America into wars that lasted for most of two decades.

History’s echo will only fuel fears that this administration is failing to remember the bloody lessons of the recent past.

The size of Donald Trump’s gamble in launching a war alongside Israel that has already led to the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is encapsulated by the scale of possible outcomes.