Hawks and doves got Iran wrong. By Walter Russel Mead in The Australian.

As the latest Gulf war intensifies and its economic consequences grow, two things seem clear. First, many Iran doves seriously underestimated the risks and costs of attempting to coexist with the regime. Second, many Iran hawks seriously underestimated the risks and costs of opposing Tehran’s drive for regional hegemony through military action. The result is a war that is more necessary than doves thought and harder to wage than hawks supposed.

Iran doves in past US administrations hoped that a mix of conciliation and deterrence would allow America to coexist with Iran. Those hopes reflected confidence that Iran’s sophisticated civil society would ultimately either overthrow the Islamic Republic or drive its evolution in a more moderate direction. …

The commitment of Tehran’s rulers to dominate the Gulf made long-term coexistence between Washington and the mullahs impossible. The Iranian regime was committed to a revolutionary religious vision and determined on economic and geopolitical grounds to seize control of the Gulf region to become a world power. Tehran was hellbent on developing military capabilities and networks that, at some point, would pose unacceptable threats to free navigation of the Gulf – and of global access to its fossil fuels and other commodities. …

So here we are. Despite military successes by air and sea, Israel and the US have so far been unable to keep the Gulf open or to protect the Gulf states from Iranian attacks. …

Internationally, allied recognition that American forces are defending a vital waterway on which their economies depend struggles with public distaste for the American President and doubts about his will and ability to win.

So far, the notion that Trump is taking his time in order to build leverage on the Europeans to go along with all his maritime plans is looking good.