IRAN SH0CKED THE WORLD AGAIN!

Successive American administrations have articulated a strategic vision of reducing American engagement in the Middle East and redirecting focus and resources toward managing the long-term challenges posed by China’s economic and military rise. That reorientation has repeatedly been interrupted by events in the region that proved impossible to ignore.

Trump’s own National Security Strategy, published just last November, declared that the Middle East had become a less troublesome region as a result of Iran having been significantly weakened, and suggested that the era of American foreign policy being dominated by Middle Eastern entanglements was effectively over.

Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, with oil prices surging, allies alarmed, displaced populations in the millions, and the Iranian government still functioning and still striking back, that assessment looks considerably less confident than it did when it was written.