A member of Iran's police special forces looks on as he holds a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a pro-Government rally in downtown Tehran, Iran, on January 12. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Getty Images

It is bubble-gum foreign policy: one where the quick hit of flavor is the goal, rather than chewing a sticky mess for hours. US President Donald Trump’s approach to global adventurism appears to adore a quick result and abhor a protracted crisis.

Little is predictable with this White House, and that is perhaps the point. But the few lessons learned from January’s whirlwind, and indeed Trump’s previous entanglements with Iran, suggest his military options ahead in the Gulf are limited, and far from great.

The buildup of naval assets off and around the coast of Iran is blunt and plodding. Trump has telegraphed potential military action for about 19 days, since he posted “HELP IS ON ITS WAY” and canceled meetings with Iranian officials because of their brutal slaughter of protesters. Back then, he lacked convincing firepower in the region to mount a sizeable assault. That calculus is slowly changing. His June assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities had two carrier groups in the region, more there as a counter-weight to any Iranian reprisals than to be directly involved in the attack. At present, the United States has one carrier group, and multiple other assets, many easily tracked by open-source monitoring.

The buildup has robbed the Pentagon of the element of surprise, but that may not make a huge difference. The Iranian regime has been on high alert, surely, for the seven months since Israel’s wide-ranging and crippling 12-day assault. And while it has surely managed some sort of recovery, its stocks of missiles, and command structure, are without doubt depleted. Trump faces a weakened adversary, but that does not improve his choices. It may in fact complicate them.