If he pulls off a regime change, even a Delcy-style swaparoo, he'll get it, and arguably not undeservedly. It will ultimately come down to Iran's capacity to inflict casualties on American forces.

He wasn’t even smart enough to leave America open to attack, manufacture a pretext, and rally people around the flag like 9/11

Heck, there was even a better case in Korea & Vietnam. Even Venezuela. What’s the case this is America’s problem?

I'm interested in what makes empires tick, what their basis of power is.

Spain in the colonial era was propped up by looting silver from Central and South America, for example.

The British Empire is what many (including me) like to call the "drug dealer empire". First tobacco then later opium. Any claims that we didn't know about the health risks of tobacco are complete BS (eg [3]).

Circling back to your point, the US is what I like to call the "arms dealer empire". WW1 and WW2 massively enriched the United States. NATO is essentially a protection racket for Europe and the price is, you guessed it, buying arms from the United States.

And the next Budget has proposed increasing "defense" spending from an already eye-popping $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion [4]. Where does that money go? Arms, weapons programs, defense contractors, the ultra-wealthy.

War is good for business even though it's unpopular.

[1]: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54158-few-americans-suppor...

[2]: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/

[3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15198996/

[4]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-proposes-massive...

Congress will not let him have a third term regardless of what he says or thinks.

Trump can literally do all the things that the epstein files accuse him of doing, right on camera in front of everyone, and Americans will still vote for him all because he isn't a "woke" black woman.