There will probably be some sort of ceasefire, maybe soon. Tanker traffic will resume through the Strait of Hormuz. The bombing will stop. But the Middle East that emerges from America's military campaign against Iran will look nothing like the one that existed before it, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writes in Foreign Policy. The old status quo is gone - and nobody has a plan for what replaces it.
The tactical scorecard is devastating, "Hvylya" reports. Iran has lost nearly all its nuclear facilities and scientists, most of its missiles and launchers, most of its weapons factories, most of its navy, and much of its command and control. Yet the regime survives. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remains operational. There is no popular uprising.
Trump's war planners seem to grasp at least part of the problem, Ignatius notes. They reportedly cautioned Israel against striking targets like energy facilities or the power grid that could cripple the country for decades, understanding the long-term danger of poisoning Iranian public sentiment. But these measured recommendations are undercut by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's boast about "punching them while they're down" and Trump's false suggestion that an Iranian Tomahawk missile destroyed a girls' school.
The columnist closes with a lesson from 1953 - the CIA coup that brought the shah to power and arguably began the cycle the world is still living through. Kermit Roosevelt, who organized it, later reflected: "If we are ever going to try something like this again, we must be absolutely sure that people and army want what we want." A new Iran will be created someday, Ignatius argues, but only by the Iranian people.
Also read: Breaking 25 Years of U.S. Doctrine: What Trump Really Thinks About Chaos in Iran.