In a stark betrayal of those of us who voted for him, President Donald Trump last Saturday took us into a war of choice with Iran. We have no significant interests at stake. The notion that Iran was on the verge of deploying ICBMs with nuclear warheads that could reach the United States makes George W. Bush’s claim of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction sound credible. Is this another case of the Israeli tail wagging the American dog? Of course it is.

We have no strategy for this war, nor can we have one because President Trump keeps changing his strategic goals. Is it overthrowing the clerical leadership and turning Iran into a normal, secular state? Many urban Iranians would welcome that; the countryside might be another story. Is it to find a more moderate cleric now that Ayatollah Khamenei is dead? If so, Mr. Trump’s goal and that of Israel are at loggerheads, because Israel is committed to assassinating any new clerical head of state. Does Mr. Trump just want to blow up Iranian military equipment? If so, that we can do, but it will not of itself change the behavior of the regime.

The best outcome for all concerned, including the Iranian people, is that the clerical state comes to an end and Iran becomes a normal country, perhaps under a new shah. But it is unlikely air attack alone can bring that about. It might open the door for the public to take to the streets again as it did in January, but after thousands of demonstrators were shot down, the street may be exhausted. Here we see the importance of speed in war: air attacks on Iran’s leadership then might have brought the clerics down, but the U.S. military could not move that quickly. Now, it may be shutting the barn door after the horse is gone.

The Israelis have ruled out any more moderate clerical regime. So where does that leave us in terms of strategic outcomes of the war? Not in very desirable places. One is with civil war in Iran between the urban and rural populations. The regime’s legitimacy is gone among the urban populace but remains strong in the countryside. A long, bloody civil war between the two would generate prolonged regional instability and vast flows of refugees.

Worse still would be Iranian state collapse. Only about half of Iran’s population is ethnic Persians. Many of the others want out of a Persian-run state, without caring much about where they would go. There is a problem here with our glorious ally Israel: the Israeli defense establishment does not understand the threat posed by Fourth Generation war and thus the danger of state collapse. On the contrary, it thinks collapsed states are less of a threat than intact ones, a grand strategic error of the first importance. Will the U.S. now be carried along with Israel in this blunder? If so, mark up another win for 4GW.

All of these outcomes presuppose the war goes the way Washington wants it to, an air and sea war that ends in a few weeks with a complete American-Israeli victory. That is a reasonable assumption on the tactical level; indeed, we have already achieved that win.

But if we look at the strategic level, Iran still has some cards to play. The first is to turn an American-Israeli coup de main into a long war. To do that, it does not have to continue shooting lots of missiles and drones. A few every day will suffice, especially if they are targeted at Israel and force Israelis to make a trip, or multiple trips, to the bomb shelters every night. Add in just a few drones aimed at Gulf oil installations, some of which will get through and do damage, and the war can turn increasingly to America’s disadvantage.

Iran’s big strategic card is to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. That is not so difficult, as the Houthis demonstrated at the entrance to the Red Sea. A few anti-ship missiles, some boardings from small boats, and insurance rates keep shippers out. Plus, Iran can do what the Houthis did not and sow mines in the Strait. Floating mines in particular are easy to sow, and while they block all shipping, including Iran’s, Iran won’t be shipping anything through the Gulf anyway so long as the war goes on. In addition, the U.S. Navy has only a handful of minesweepers. We rely on allies for minesweeping capability. What allies?

Where does all this leave us? If the war goes according to plan, our most desired strategic outcome, the fall of the clerical regime and its replacement by a normal, secular state, depends on luck. Strategies that depend for victory on getting lucky, we might call them “Vegas strategies,” do not count as prudent, or even as strategies at all. Other outcomes, such as large-scale Iranian civil war or disintegration of the Iranian state, would be defeats.

If Iran succeeds in turning the conflict into a long war that blocks most oil exports from the Persian Gulf and leaves Israelis stuck in a war of pinpricks without end, while maintaining the clerical regime at home, we would suffer another type of defeat.

To say no one in Washington thought this war through strategically before embarking on it is to state the obvious. Less obvious is how such a thing could happen.