Bowen: Iran deal ends Trump's war that revealed limit of US dominance

In the first of a series of devastating surprise attacks, Israel killed the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his closest advisers. Around the same time, an American strike flattened a school in Minab in southern Iran, multiple investigations have shown. More than 150 civilians were killed, including at least 120 school children, mostly girls under the age of 12.Both Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made video appearances to announce the start of a war that they believed would be short, sharp and victorious. It was a stunning misjudgement.ReutersRe-opening the Strait of Hormuz would take pressure off the global economy and the real lives of hundreds of millions of peopleTheir speeches predicted the fall of the regime in Tehran. Instead, survival has strengthened the regime. Its worst nightmare was a full-scale attempt at regime change by the United States and Israel. It happened and failed. The hard men in Tehran who survived have emerged emboldened.Khamanei and his advisers were replaced rapidly, by his son Mojtaba as supreme leader and by a younger generation of commanders, dominated by senior leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. They are every bit as ideological as the old guard, but less cautious, ready to take risks in what they considered, correctly, to be a fight for the survival of the Islamic regime in Iran.They pushed to the limit a well-planned strategy of closing the Strait of Hormuz and attacking Iran's Arab neighbours as well as US forces and bases, and Israel itself. The bellicose rhetoric of the US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth claiming that American power had crippled Iran's armed forces turned out to be exaggerated and untrue.Israel was America's full partner in the war. But it was excluded from the negotiation on the memorandum of understanding and is viewing the deal with dismay.Netanyahu said on 28 February that he had waited all his political life for the chance to destroy the Islamic Republic, which he views as Israel's most dangerous enemy. Now he is under attack from political opponents for endangering Israel's security.