He could end it tomorrow, but what happens the morning after, when Trump has to explain why Iran is still standing, Tehran effectively controls the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S military failed to impose Washington's will?
Scott Horton believes Trump has already had multiple opportunities to declare victory and walk away, but every time, Washington found another reason it couldn't leave.
Every additional objective made the eventual exit harder, because now the consequences of the war are much bigger than Iran's nuclear facilities.
And Scott argues decades of U.S policy intended to weaken Tehran have repeatedly achieved the opposite.
George W. Bush destroyed Saddam Hussein, Iran's greatest regional enemy, and Iraq subsequently moved deeper into Tehran's orbit, and the Houthis emerged as a formidable regional force.
Now Trump has done something Scott thinks may be even more damaging:
He tested the assumption of overwhelming U.S military power against Iran and exposed its limits.
And that's why walking away becomes so politically difficult.
Leaving doesn't just mean ending a war; it means acknowledging that the old order isn't coming back.
And the longer Trump fights to avoid being remembered as the president who lost the Iran war, the greater the risk he becomes the president remembered for something much worse.
@scotthortonshow
