Aaron David Miller

There was no imminent or critical threat to the United States.

And the objectives of this war were so tangled and so confused.

Partly, I think, David, was the fact that the president was enamored by the Venezuela operation.

Partly it's because in the January protests, he said things that no American president, Republican or Democrat has ever said.

Help is on the way.

These are institutions.

Then, of course, he deployed the largest single naval and missile asset buildup since the second Iraq war in 2003.

There was no chance the negotiations leading up to this war could have succeeded, given the gaps that existed between Iran and the U.S.

So he was locked in.

And he went to war looking for an Iranian, Delcy Rodriguez, right?

The current de facto leader of Venezuela.

But what he found, as my colleague Karim Sajidpour at Carnegie said many times, what he found was an Iranian Kim Jong-un.

And not just one Iranian Kim Jong-un, several.

So we now find ourselves in a situation in which there is no easy way out.

Diplomacy appears to have hit a dead end.

And I'm not sure there's a kinetic fix here, and nor do I believe a blockade, which will devastate even more the Iranian economy, will force the Iranians to capitulate.

I mean, look, I'm no international lawyer, but the rules of war permit a party at war the right to visit and search, meaning that they can stop and inspect, you know, even private vessels in waters that are not neutral and decide whether or not they're going to pass.

The U.S.

military has the capacity.

They'll identify tankers, right, loading up at Karg Island, which was the main export terminal.