That may be the real reason the U.S.-Iran conflict has no obvious off-ramp, according to Aaron David Miller.
Miller argues that Washington is unlikely to accept Tehran's core demand: control over the strategic leverage surrounding the Strait of Hormuz.
But if diplomacy cannot produce a deal and Trump does not want another massive escalation, the remaining option may be economic warfare.
The administration could attempt to place a chokehold on Iran's economy through aggressive secondary sanctions, targeting not only Iranian banks and oil exports but any country that continues doing business with Tehran.
That could inflict severe damage on Iran. But it may not change Iran's strategic calculation.
And that is where the problem gets ugly.
If economic pressure begins to weaken the Iranian regime, Tehran still has the ability to escalate militarily across the region. Iran cannot attack the continental United States in any conventional sense, Miller argues, but it can strike American bases, Gulf states and other vulnerable targets across the region.
One escalation could trigger another.
And suddenly a campaign designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table becomes another cycle of retaliation with no clear endpoint.
Miller is far more skeptical of the new Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan "Mecca Agreement" than much of the commentary surrounding it.
On paper, the combination is formidable: Turkey has NATO's second-largest military, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and Saudi Arabia remains the region's dominant energy power. But power on paper is not the same thing as a functioning alliance.
Miller questions whether Turkey and Pakistan would actually go to war with Iran if one of the members were attacked. He also rejects the idea that this is some kind of "Arab NATO."
The Middle East has a long history of grand regional alliances that looked impressive in communiqués and considerably less impressive once reality arrived.
More importantly, Miller does not believe these new arrangements are replacing the United States.
And this is where the interview becomes darker.
The United States has spent decades trying to manage a region filled with authoritarian governments, competing interests, unresolved conflicts and increasingly independent centers of power.
The result, Miller argues, is not a clean American withdrawal.
It is a region where Washington has repeatedly used its power without necessarily solving the problems that required it in the first place.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved. Iran's regional power is resurging. Weapons proliferation remains a problem. Yemen and Lebanon remain unstable.
And the broader Middle East has now been thrown into another period of upheaval.
So the United States may be stuck in something resembling Miller's "Hotel California" analogy.
It can check out anytime it wants. It just cannot quite seem to leave. And that may be the deeper problem with the U.S.-Iran war.
There is no decisive victory on the horizon. No obvious diplomatic settlement. No regional alliance capable of replacing American power.
And no strategic exhaustion forcing either side to compromise.
Thank you for our interview @aarondmiller2
