The "terrorist industrial complex" is an insanely profitable system of parasitic rent extractors built up over at least 50 years.  It creates massive frictional costs in energy, security, and governmental oversight and the people that profit from the complex don't want to give up the gains.  Please keep this in mind when analyzing "news and analysis" on the Middle East.  The media pushes narratives; it doesn't provide information to make objective choices.

Furthermore, global leaders and especially leaders in Iran, Iraq, Oman, Yemen, Somalia, and Ethiopia have risen to power not for their ability to improve the lives of their people but because they have proven adept at extracting rent from the system by providing the services that allow the complex to function.  At the top, these aren't fanatics; they are self-interested agents of their own interests. 

The main beneficiaries seem to have addresses in London, Paris, Washington, Tehran, Jerusalem, Dubai, Geneva, Frankfurt, Beijing, Singapore, and many other places across the globe.  Bankers, traders, financiers, government leaders, intelligence services, paramilitary service providers, elected officials, and many others eat at the trough.  They have money, power, and every incentive to keep the gravy train running. 

Low Energy Prices Are the Key

Technology has given us this wonderful opportunity to have low energy costs.  We have to seize that, rather than keep debating and discussing and fighting over it – Michael Porter

Trump has chosen to attack the entrenched interests in the "terrorist industrial complex" by conducting operations in the Caribbean, South America, and the Persian Gulf and these are not interests you can afford to engage in a war of attrition.  He has to win and win decisively or they will destroy him and his family. 

The American System can only succeed by guaranteeing cheap energy which means eliminating the terrorism premium on oil and gas along with the climate change premium.  He doesn't have time for everlasting negotiations with Iran.

To keep oil prices contained, the White House has been drawing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is down to 46% of capacity.  The US is going to need to start filling it again before much longer. 

When combined with the need to keep oil prices low heading into the mid-term elections, the US military must act quickly to wrap up the Iran question.  Taking Kharg Island and holding it in trust while directing the cash flows from oil exports is the only path to victory.  My point since April has been that the US military has to set the conditions before they can make the move; the endless theater of dealmaking has purchased that time.

Setting the conditions includes clearing the Strait of Hormuz of mines, discovering the locations of Iran's high-speed fleet of attack craft, determining the locations of missile and artillery batteries in the mountains above the Strait, and clearing some of the excess shipping trapped in the Persian Gulf.  Presumably, this has been done.