The Week: There’s No End in Sight for the Iran War

• At this rate, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Cricket shot himself.

• The reporting ahead of President Donald Trump’s Wednesday night address to the nation forecast Trump’s intention to declare victory and withdraw from the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to media speculation, he would insist that our objectives had been achieved. He would wash his hands of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, and he would lambaste America’s NATO allies for failing to take ownership of it—perhaps even going so far as to withdraw from the Atlantic Alliance. He did nothing of the sort. While Trump did declare that most of America’s wartime objectives had been achieved, he said there was more fighting to come, and he pledged to “help” alleviate the crisis in the strait. The U.S. has so far suffered the loss of 13 service members, but the operation has been remarkably successful in destroying Iranian military power. Had the Iranian threat been allowed to mature, as the president said, the future would have been bleak.

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• At this rate, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Cricket shot himself.

• The reporting ahead of President Donald Trump’s Wednesday night address to the nation forecast Trump’s intention to declare victory and withdraw from the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to media speculation, he would insist that our objectives had been achieved. He would wash his hands of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, and he would lambaste America’s NATO allies for failing to take ownership of it—perhaps even going so far as to withdraw from the Atlantic Alliance. He did nothing of the sort. While Trump did declare that most of America’s wartime objectives had been achieved, he said there was more fighting to come, and he pledged to “help” alleviate the crisis in the strait. The U.S. has so far suffered the loss of 13 service members, but the operation has been remarkably successful in destroying Iranian military power. Had the Iranian threat been allowed to mature, as the president said, the future would have been bleak.