Trump's always admired Putin, and now just like Putin, he's also entered his own quagmire... Retreating isn't even a viable option, as far as I understand, an angry Iranian regime will keep disrupting the region, so now Trump's only option is to escalate.
Too bad the whole world has to sit and watch itself get fucked...
Retreating is a viable option for the US. The world will return to the status quo in a week or three, and he will look every bit the fool that he is.
Nobody wants to get involved when Iran is fighting back against US aggression. The world would get a lot more interested in doing so if it were just conducting unprovoked, unilateral piracy in the straight.
Withdrawal is a viable option for everyone but the man who started it.
Congress can end this any time by not paying for this shit.
Foreign Affairs suggests Iran would rather fight a protacted war with the US than repeated wars with Israel. And in either case, they would continue to attack US regional interests.
I don't know, in my scenario, Iran will keep attacking the Middle Eastern countries, angering them enough to yell at Trump to fix the shit he's started. But maybe China could get them to stop...
But this is amateur geopolitics commentary (A great quote about Internet commentariat when the Russian invasion started was "Last week I was an epidemiologist, this week I'm a geopolitical expert!")
Too bad the whole world has to sit and watch itself get fucked...