President Donald Trump said last month that the war in Iran would be over “within two weeks … maybe three.” Yet, with the regime still intact and unwilling to give up nuclear enrichment, it seems things are just getting started.

The Trump administration’s Iran war timeline feels a lot like the COVID-19 lockdown timeline. “Two weeks to stop the spread,” they said, yet lockdowns and mandates persisted for months or years; some places still haven’t recovered. Similarly, we have been hearing for nearly two months that the war is about to end — yet War Secretary Pete Hegseth just warned on Thursday that the United States is “reloading with more power than before” and White House Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller recently said the war could continue “indefinitely.”