*** WARNING: RBN presents this information from the ‘opposition forces’, namely: The Council on Foreign Relations, because we have procured access to their (the CFR’s) publications.
Consider these following as ‘enemy intelligence’.

A member of U.S. forces takes video during the U.S.-led “LIVEX Immediate Response 2025” military exercise, with the participation of forces from Greece, France, Spain, Croatia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Albania, near Xanthi, Greece, June 4, 2025. REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki

Source: ForeignAffairs.com | CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)

We’ve compiled a selection of Foreign Affairs essays that shed light on how the United States approached the war with Iran—and why the conflict has been so difficult to resolve. Start reading below.

Iran and the Forever War Trap

In Trying to Avoid a Quagmire, America Found a Dead End

By Lawrence D. Freedman

(Published May 2026)

The Hormuz Minefield

In the Strait, Iran Holds the Advantage—and America Has No Good Options

By Caitlin Talmadge

(Published March 2026)

Why Iran Will Escalate

U.S. Military Strikes and the Risk of a Quagmire

By Nate Swanson

(Published February 2026)

In Iran, the Trump administration fell “prey to the short-war fallacy, focusing inordinately on the power of its means while losing sight of how to achieve its ends,” writes Lawrence Freedman in a new essay. Great powers tend to assume that “moving fast with tremendous force will incapacitate adversaries and achieve swift success on the battlefield,” but “wars do not often end so easily.” Today, the United States’ gambit in Iran “may not turn out to be a long war, but it has already failed as a short war.”