The U.S. war on Iran is not an isolated decision but the latest expression of a coherent military doctrine that Donald Trump has been building since his first term. Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, traces this pattern across seven separate military operations in a new Foreign Affairs analysis.

As reported by "Hvylya", Fontaine's article in Foreign Affairs documents the evolution from the 2017 and 2018 missile strikes on Assad's Syria, through the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, to the Houthi campaign in Yemen, the destruction of Iranian nuclear sites, attacks on militants in northern Nigeria, the Venezuela invasion, and now the full-scale Iran operation.

Every operation shared the same DNA. No congressional vote. No public ultimatums. No clear exit strategy. Limited force - airpower and special forces rather than ground troops. Shifting objectives that allow the president to declare success at any point. Fontaine argues this amounts to a systematic inversion of the Powell Doctrine, which demanded overwhelming force, clear goals, and public support before any military action.

The escalation has been gradual but unmistakable. Syria was a retaliatory strike. The Soleimani killing was a targeted assassination. Yemen was a limited air campaign. Venezuela was a regime change operation against a weak government. Iran is regime change against an entrenched state with a powerful security apparatus. Each step pushed further from conventional U.S. military practice.

The common thread, Fontaine argues, is Trump's belief that force is "not something to employ only when all other means have been exhausted, but rather one of several tools available to increase leverage, maximize surprise, and produce outcomes." Speed and unpredictability matter more than coalition-building or domestic consensus.

Some of these operations produced tangible results. The Houthi deal ended attacks on shipping. Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites were destroyed. Maduro was removed from Venezuela. But Fontaine warns that the pattern also reveals growing risk - each new gamble is bigger than the last, and Iran may be the one where the approach meets its match.

Also read: Fatal Pattern Since October 7: Why Iran's Overconfidence May Prove Deadly