馃嚭馃嚫馃嚠馃嚪 Trump may be making the biggest strategic miscalculation of the war.
Geopolitical analyst Brandon Weichert believes the White House is assuming one overwhelming show of force will push Iran back to the negotiating table.
He thinks the opposite will happen.
According to reports discussed in the interview, Washington is weighing a large-scale campaign targeting not only military sites, but potentially Iran's energy infrastructure as well.
Brandon believes the logic is simple.
Hit Iran hard enough, demonstrate overwhelming American power, then negotiate from a position of strength.
He doesn't think Tehran sees it that way.
His argument is that Washington is treating Iran like a conventional state that responds primarily to military pressure.
Iran, he says, defines legitimacy through resistance. The harder it's hit, the harder it becomes politically for Tehran to compromise.
That's why Brandon believes a major U.S. campaign wouldn't be the final round. It would simply be the start of the next one.
The U.S. may be able to destroy what it can find. But it can never be certain it found everything.
Meanwhile, Iran only needs to keep enough capability intact to continue imposing costs.
Brandon believes that asymmetry favors Tehran over time.
If Iran refuses to bend, what started as escalation could well become an open-ended war neither side knows how to end.
@WeTheBrandon
We can just assume the fall of the American empire in the Middle East at least, which means anything could happen in the Middle East in the future
Just by surviving to fight another day, Iran considers they鈥檙e winning.
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