Pakistan, Nov. 2 -- Caught in a stalemate, Washington and Tehran find themselves unable to retreat, yet lacking a strategy to break the impasse, a situation aptly described by Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian as "neither war, nor peace situation". For decades, US-Iran relations have been driven by covert proxy clashes, transactional diplomacy, and deep-seated mistrust. As a consequence of recent US-Iran conflict, Washington's reliance on deterrence and economic coercion has failed to limit Iran's regional influence, while Tehran's forward-defence doctrine has pushed its economic and political stability to vulnerable limits. As both the capitals get into deeper strategic delusions, their strategic impasse reveals far more than a disagree...