Terrorists and politicians love pre-emptive attacks. They are spectacular hits on an enemy’s leadership. Despite 400 years of failure the passion hasn’t cooled. In January 2026 the USA kidnapped Venezuela’s president. Maduro’s party remains in power.

The USA had a triumphant success in ‘decapitating’ the entire Iranian leadership on 28^th February 2026. If Clausewitz and Bismarck¹ had been in the White House Situation Room they would have implemented their diplomatic strategy immediately. Anything to avoid a competitive war.

Trump should have declared victory on 1^st March 2026 and sent diplomats to meet the surviving Iranian leaders. The phrase ‘Shock and Awe’ was entirely apposite on The Next Day’. Iran was reeling. The decapitation was a foregone success. There had been many targeted assassinations elsewhere and a whole-hearted quasi-rehearsal in the 2025’12 Day War’.

Trump’s use of American power would have incentivised the new leadership to negotiate. Instead, the USA and Israel continued their futile bombing campaign.² They are now buried in a geopolitical nightmare, which looks which like an attritional war. Attritional warfare is the usual antecedent of a forever war, which will wreck the world economy.

Instead of a 24 hour war the USA didn’t plan for success and is facing a stronger Iran.

Notes

1 Germany and the Cause of the First World War | Odeboyz’s Blog

2 War Studies: Bombing Japan, 1945 | Odeboyz’s Blog