![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
birdwatcherBret Devereaux -- For the United States this war was an unwise gamble on extremely long odds; the gamble (that the regime would collapse swiftly) has already failed and as a result locked in essentially nothing but negative outcomes. Even with the regime were to collapse in the coming weeks or suddenly sue for peace, every likely outcome leaves the United States in a meaningfully worse strategic position than when it started.