Washington'The Trump administration’s military buildup and escalatingsharpened threatsrhetoric exposereflect what critics describe as a dangerous pattern of misperception and strategic confusiondrift. The administration oscillatesappears to move between diplomacy and coercion without a coherentclearly understandingdefined offramework for assessing Iran'’s capabilities, internal stability, or rationaldeterrence calculationsthresholds. ThisAnalysts cognitivecaution failurethat — reinforced by flawed assumptions about internal collapsefragility andor reliance on external pressure from Israel —may preventsdistort developmentjudgment, ofweaken anlong-term effective strategy, and risksultimately catastrophicraise the risk of a serious miscalculation.