Now the U.S.’s own ability to exercise its will as a paramount hegemon is in question, according to Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank that advocates policy restraint. Trump’s mistaken belief that the campaign against Iran could be done swiftly and neatly, Kelanic said, “shows that the United States doesn’t have the strategic advantages and power that it thought it had, and that it maybe previously did possess.”
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