By Khushal Khan, Political Analyst

 For weeks, the headlines from Washington have been about American military might: bombers in the sky, carriers in the Arabian Sea, and a president vowing to bomb Iran "back to the stone age." But beneath the bravado, a very different reality is taking shape -- one that the world's most powerful nation appears increasingly unable to acknowledge.

Iran is winning the war. And United States President Donald Trump knows it.

That is not the assessment of Tehran's state media or a partisan talking point. It is the conclusion of one of America's most distinguished and unorthodox political scientists. In his first-ever appearance on Pakistani television, Dr. John Mearsheimer -- the renowned University of Chicago professor and co-author of "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" -- laid out a stark assessment that ought to chill every policymaker in Washington.

"Iran is winning the war," Mearsheimer told Fahd Husain on Express 24/7's "Full Frame." "Iran has a vested interest in not ending the war until it gets what it demands. The United States, however, cannot make the necessary concessions to Iran at this point in time. So the war will go on."

This is the uncomfortable truth that Trump's daily social media bluster cannot obscure. As the escalation ladder climbs, Mearsheimer argues, Iran holds the advantage -- not necessarily on the battlefield, but in the broader strategic and economic theater. And that is precisely what terrifies the White House.

Consider the irony: the president who began his political career promising to end America's "endless wars" has now stumbled into a conflict he cannot easily exit. Mearsheimer notes that it is Trump -- not the Iranians -- who is desperate for a solution. It is Trump who has reportedly reached out to Pakistan to mediate. It is Trump whose administration is scrambling for an off-ramp.

Why the desperation? Because this war is no longer contained to the skies over Iran. It has broken its banks and is now flooding the global economy.

Trump has created an energy crisis of historic proportions. By targeting Iran's oil refineries, gas facilities, and power plants -- and by effectively closing or restricting the Strait of Hormuz -- American strikes have sent crude oil prices soaring past $130 a barrel. Gasoline lines are forming in places that have not seen them since the 1970s. European factories are slowing. Asian supply chains are snapping. And in the United States itself, inflation -- which Trump promised to crush -- is roaring back to life, fueled by the very war he chose to escalate.

This is the "Trump energy crisis," and it is now a household term from Karachi to Kansas City. World leaders are no longer asking Washington for support; they are demanding to know who will pay for the damage. French President Emmanuel Macron, himself no friend of Tehran, has publicly warned Trump that bombing will "never deliver" peace -- citing the catastrophic failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya as proof.

Macron's message was unmistakable: you have already lost this war. You cannot win it the way you imagine.

- A President in 'Anxiety'

Watch Trump's public appearances closely -- something his own aides reportedly do with growing concern. For one hour, he vows total destruction. The next, he hints at a deal. One morning he threatens to hit cultural sites. By evening, his spokespeople walk back the threat. His social media feed has become a commander-in-chief wrestling with a conflict he did not anticipate and cannot control.

This is not strategic ambiguity. This is strategic bewilderment.

And the American people are beginning to pay the price. The same voters who elected Trump to lower their grocery bills are now watching their wallets empty at the pump. The same working-class families who backed his "America First" agenda are discovering that in this war of choice, they are the ones being asked to sacrifice -- not for national survival, but for the sake of a president's pride and a foreign power's ambitions.

Here is where the analysis moves from observation to prediction -- and where Mearsheimer's framework points to an inevitable conclusion.

Trump, facing an economic meltdown at home and a diplomatic revolt abroad, will soon flee from this war. Not because he has grown wise, but because he has no choice. His instinct has always been transactional, not ideological. When the costs exceed the perceived benefits -- and they already have -- Trump will cut his losses and declare victory in a retreat disguised as a withdrawal.

But he will not take Israel with him.

And that is where the true reckoning awaits. Israel, which has pushed relentlessly for American military action against Iran, will find itself standing alone soon -- without the protective umbrella of US airpower, without the diplomatic cover of the White House, and without the patience of a region that has watched it commit what many call crimes against Palestinians.

Israel cannot fight Iran alone. Its air force, however capable, lacks the refueling capacity and missile inventory for a sustained, multi-front campaign. Its missile defense systems, however advanced, would be overwhelmed by the scale of retaliation Iran can unleash -- not just from its own arsenal, but through Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and allied militias across Syria and Iraq.

"Iran will rubble them under the foot," as the saying goes in this part of the world. That is not hyperbole. It is a military reality that Israeli generals privately acknowledge, even as their politicians publicly beat the drums of war.

- A Lesson the West Refuses to Learn

Macron was right to invoke Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. In each case, Western powers convinced themselves that airpower alone could reshape nations. In each case, they were proven catastrophically wrong -- but only after thousands of civilians lay dead and entire countries lay in ruins.

Iran is not Iraq. It is a civilization of over 85 million people, with a proud history stretching back millennia, with military capabilities honed over decades of sanctions and isolation, and with a strategic depth that no amount of bombing can erase. The more the West strikes, the more Iran's domestic support consolidates. The more the West threatens, the more the region views Tehran as the resister -- and Washington as the bully.

This war will end -- and sooner than many expect. But it will not end with Trump's victory lap. It will end with Trump's quiet retreat, with Israel scrambling for security guarantees it can no longer secure, and with Iran emerging battered but unbowed, having outlasted yet another aggressor.

The question is not whether Iran can win. By Mearsheimer's measure, it already is. The question is how much more of the global economy -- and how many more civilian lives -- will be sacrificed before Washington accepts what the rest of the world already sees.

Trump's anxiety is visible to all. His daily contradictions are the death rattle of a failed strategy. And when he finally flees, as he inevitably will, the American people -- already sinking under the weight of his war of choice -- will be left to ask the one question no one in Washington dares answer:

Who, exactly, put America first?

*Khushal Khan is a political analyst based in Islamabad, specializing in South Asian and West Asian strategic affairs. The views expressed in this opinion piece are his own.