The US government continues to double down, even as its stubbornness costs it dearly not only in material terms but also in geopolitical influence. Washington is rapidly losing power and status in the Middle East, a decline that could produce a wider domino effect, reverberating around the world.

The latest expression of this hubris came from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Speaking at a G20 gathering of finance ministers in Asheville, North Carolina, last week, Bessent declared that, within two years, the Strait of Hormuz would become “a worthless piece of water,” as oil would instead be transported through overland pipelines.

Bessent is promoting a new narrative that shifts the emphasis from the military war to an economic one. In an article for The Financial Times last month, he announced that “an economic D-Day is coming for Iran,” threatening countries that continue to trade with Tehran with severe economic consequences. This sounds more like an admission of Washington’s inability to alter the course of the war than a serious foreign policy strategy.

Two dominant schools of thought have emerged to explain how Washington finds itself in this position. The first, promoted largely by sections of the US media, former officials, and retired military commanders, argues that the war on Iran was a mistake from the outset and that Washington lacked the military and logistical preparedness necessary to wage it.

Bessent is promoting a new narrative that shifts the emphasis from the military war to an economic one

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The second explanation places Iran at the center. It argues that Washington fundamentally underestimated Iran’s military capabilities, political resilience and regional reach, instead treating the country as though it were another Venezuela that could be subdued through sanctions, threats and limited military pressure.

Both explanations contain elements of truth. Neither, however, provides the deeper, less defensive and more historically grounded understanding required to explain the scale of the present American failure.

John Mearsheimer, the prominent US political scientist and international relations scholar, has been among the boldest critics of the war. American President Donald Trump “is trapped and has no way out,” Mearsheimer wrote in July. “All of this is to say that the decision to attack Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, is one of the greatest blunders in the history of US foreign policy,” he added.

Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs, Scott Ritter and other critical American voices often — and understandably — analyze these “great blunders” from a US-centered perspective. For millions of people in the Middle East, however, this collective analysis is not an intellectual or strategic exercise. It describes their everyday reality. They have lived through these catastrophic miscalculations and paid the human price of US intransigence, militarism and political failure.

The history of US foreign policy in the Middle East offers countless examples of this destructive pattern. Washington’s support for Israel — the region’s greatest destabilizing force — remains the most enduring example.

Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and other peoples of the region require no new strategic framework to reach a conclusion similar to Mearsheimer’s. They have experienced the consequences of US power directly: wars, invasions, occupations, sanctions, political interference and unconditional support for Israel.

Key Middle Eastern leaders understand that a prolonged war against Iran would not remain confined to Iran

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The US also established a disastrous record through its invasion and occupation of Iraq. It succeeded in overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003 but failed catastrophically to govern the country, stabilize it or restructure the Middle East according to the “vision” it had proclaimed. The outcome was not a new American order but the devastation of Iraq, prolonged instability and the rise of political forces the US had neither anticipated nor controlled.

Washington’s Western allies were also drawn into what became known as the Iraq quagmire, paying considerable political, military and financial costs for a war whose premises proved false and whose consequences remain unresolved.

Naturally, those former partners have little appetite for participating in a much larger and potentially more destructive war against Iran for an indefinite period.

But the Middle East has changed. Regional states now possess greater political agency and more diversified alliances than they did in 2003 — and they have far more at stake. They are no longer operating within a regional order in which Washington represents the only meaningful center of power.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Egypt last week provides one of numerous examples. “We must uphold the principle that the people of the Middle East are the masters of their own affairs,” Xi said during his meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. He also urged countries to oppose “external interference” and strengthen regional dialogue on peace and security.

Like Egypt, other regional powers are similarly diversifying their partnerships rather than relying exclusively on Washington.

Key Middle Eastern leaders understand that a prolonged war against Iran would not remain confined to Iran. It could destabilize the entire region, devastate economies and infrastructure, threaten vital energy routes, and generate interconnected wars whose consequences could endure for decades.

This brings us to Israel. Historically the cornerstone of US strategy in the region, Israel is itself considerably weaker. It is militarily overstretched, politically fragmented, socially divided and unable to decisively conclude any of the wars it has opened, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated declarations of victory.

Washington’s present predicament, therefore, cannot be explained solely through depleted arsenals, poor military planning, Trump’s impulsiveness or Netanyahu’s manipulation. Nor can it be understood simply as the result of underestimating Iran.

The deeper failure lies in Washington’s attempt to impose an outdated model of regional domination on a Middle East — and a world — that has fundamentally changed.

  • Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His latest book, “Before the Flood,” was published by Seven Stories Press. His website is ramzybaroud.net. X: @RamzyBaroud