In the months since open conflict began between the United States and Iran, the most consequential battlefield has not been the Strait of Hormuz or the skies over the Middle East — it has been the space between American words and American intentions. When a great power cannot articulate what it is fighting for, adversaries fill that silence with their darkest fears, and those fears become policy. The cycle of escalation now grinding through the region is, in no small part, a product of strategic incoherence mistaken for strategy.
Unclear U.S. Strategy Fuels Iran Escalation Spiral
Thousands of Iranian missiles and drones struck U.S. military bases and Middle Eastern infrastructure; ongoing tit-for-tat strikes have caused casualties and damage across the region.