Iran holds all the cards—primarily the Strait of Hormuz, along with the deterrent capability their drones and missiles have created against their Gulf neighbors. There are more cards they have yet to play, such as closing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. Trump has nothing of the sort.
The first quarter of this century has seen a series of US failures—at a time when their military power was unquestioned and their monopoly on the use of force was a uniquely recorded event in the history of warfare. By attacking Iran, Trump has not only repeated the mistakes of his predecessors in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Syria; he has also added new errors of his own.
Just as former US President George W. Bush attacked Iraq based on false intelligence, claiming Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Trump has attacked Iran based on fabricated intelligence. But at least Bush's dubious intelligence documents came from his own intelligence agencies. Trump's false intelligence was manufactured by Mossad; and ignoring the advice of the US intelligence community, the US commander-in-chief fully believed it.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad Director David Barnea convinced Trump that after the January uprising, Tehran's government had become so weak that it would collapse within days of the supreme leader's assassination. The biggest proponent of this argument was Netanyahu, whose lifelong dream seemed on the verge of fulfillment.
He claimed that just one final push was enough. Now the war is nearing its end, and he is the biggest loser; that is why he is desperately trying to prevent Trump from signing a memorandum of understanding with Iran. But when the war ends, the final reckoning will come for both leaders.
