After more than two weeks of consistent bombing, new US intelligence suggests Iran's regime is now consolidating power, unlikely to collapse, and led by a cadre more extreme than before. Despite this, Washington is deploying thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, and Trump inches closer to a potential ground campaign inside Iran. It is time to face reality: tactical successes cannot mask what has quickly become another strategic failure in the Middle East.

There was no question whether the United States and Israel could inflict major damage on the Iranian regime and its military. It took them only 100 hours to drop more bombs than in the first six months of the US-led counter-ISIS campaign and less than 24 hours to assassinate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The war has certainly achieved discrete tactical successes aimed at weakening Tehran. Yet the central question has always been the strategic end such force is meant to achieve.