The conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most complex and dangerous junctions of contemporary geopolitics. It is not a contingent crisis arising from a single isolated episode or a diplomatic miscalculation; it is the mature outcome of decades of structural tensions accumulated along the fault lines of the struggle for regional hegemony, the control of energy resources, and the redefinition of the international order. The reflections and debates generated within CESMAR, which gave rise to an internal document entitled “America Trapped”—from which this summary draws its inspiration—argue with rigorous analytical care that Washington is caught in a systemic trap from which there is no exit through any of the options traditionally at the disposal of a great power: neither military victory, nor negotiation, nor withdrawal. The understanding of this stalemate is the indispensable prerequisite for anyone seeking to analyze the dynamics of the conflict and its implications, far beyond the regional perimeter …read more