President Trump has defined his career in politics with displays of dominance and control. But in the Middle East, he faces a rolling crisis that keeps thwarting those impulses.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Mr. Trump lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling The Financial Times<\/a> that the Israeli leader \u201cwon\u2019t have any choice\u201d but to accept a U.S.-negotiated deal with Iran. \u201cI call all the shots,\u201d he said. But early Monday, Mr. Trump was still trying to rein in Mr. Netanyahu, writing on social media just after 5:30 a.m.: \u201cIsrael and Iran must immediately stop \u2018shooting.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n One hundred days after starting the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran on Feb. 28, Mr. Trump is grappling with his own version of the sort of Middle East military quagmire that beset his predecessors \u2014 and that he promised to avoid. (On Sunday, Mr. Trump tried to deny that he had ever made such a pledge, telling NBC News that \u201cI don\u2019t like these endless wars\u201d but also that \u201cthis is not an endless war.\u201d)<\/p>\n He won a tactical reprieve on Monday when Iran and Israel both said they would hold their fire after their first strikes on each other since April. But the fundamental deadlock remains, as Iran hawks in Washington warn that the president faces a strategic defeat and as polls show broad disapproval of the war as the midterms approach.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump launched a war of choice overestimating America\u2019s military capacity and underestimating Iran\u2019s,\u201d said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. \u201cThat is a box that Trump cannot get out of right now.\u201d<\/p>\n That box includes Iran\u2019s de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which the U.S. counter-blockade on Iranian ships has been unable to resolve. There is also Mr. Trump\u2019s demand for wide-ranging concessions by Iran on its nuclear program, which Tehran is resisting.<\/p>\n \u201cI worry that the president\u2019s going to codify a bad deal,\u201d said Brad Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer and senior military expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that takes a hawkish line on Iran.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has let his frustration show. He complained on social media last week that critics were \u201cchirping\u201d that he should \u201cmove faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever.\u201d He said they should \u201csit back and relax\u201d because \u201cit will all work out well in the end \u2014 It always does!\u201d<\/p>\n On Sunday, Mr. Trump insisted that he had not violated his campaign pledge to avoid \u201cendless wars\u201d even though a conflict he called \u201ca little excursion\u201d in March had entered its fourth month.<\/p>\n \u201cLook at Iraq. You were there for years,\u201d Mr. Trump said in an interview with Kristen Welker of NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re there for a few months. And the threat is largely over. Soon, it will be over.\u201d<\/p>\n But unlike Iraq, where U.S. ground forces toppled Saddam Hussein\u2019s government within weeks before eventually getting bogged down in a yearslong insurgency, the Iran war has stood out for how quickly it has revealed the limits of what American firepower can accomplish. Mr. Bowman said that if the war left the Iranian leadership \u201cangry and still armed,\u201d with newfound influence over the Strait of Hormuz, \u201cthen I\u2019d say that is a negative outcome for the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States has demonstrated that it has the pre-eminent military in the world, but that that military power also has limitations,\u201d Mr. Bowman said. \u201cI do worry that this administration underestimated the Islamic Republic of Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Bowman said that a sharp escalation of the war by the United States would also be problematic, and that the depletion of U.S. munitions stocks<\/a> had harmed America\u2019s military posture in Europe and Asia. But he acknowledged that his preferred route of heightening the economic and political pressure on Iran would be difficult to maintain for Mr. Trump, given Iran\u2019s ability to keep gasoline prices high with its grip on the strait.<\/p>\n