Geopolitically, the Vietnam War happened in a different era; it was a Cold War proxy that was embedded in a bipolar international system. The Iran War takes place in a much more fragmented multipolar environment and in an age in which conflicts are not just military but informational. No war fought in a fragmented multipolar environment can stay regionalised. Especially in the case of this war against Iran, which has a profound nuclear and economic dimension, and thus makes it difficult for Russia, China and even the Gulf states to stay on the sidelines for a very long time. There are only two pathways that this war can take. Either all stakeholders realise the enormity of the situation and force the Americans and the Israelis to halt bombing Iran and step back or join hands with them to finish the job they have already started. The likelihood of the former happening seems reasonable, but the latter seems a ridiculous choice that should never be made.
For Iran, the choice is very simple; it has built a narrative, framing the conflict as existential and a war of survival against a foreign aggression that wants to undo its sovereignty. In the first few days, Iran has clearly shown its willingness and resilience to endure pain and hardship to complicate any designs of its adversary’s victory.
The US-Israel combo is escalating the conflict with the hope to quickly degrade Iran’s military capability to help engineer a political change. Both understand that they cannot risk a prolonged regional war because of the growing domestic fallout as well as the growing global economic implications. Yet, six days into this war, and all that we see is no exit strategy and ill-spelled, vague and ambiguous victory conditions. This dichotomy parallels the options President Nixon faced in Vietnam – fight on despite diminishing prospects of a decisive victory vis-a-vis accepting a less than decisive outcome and withdrawing before the cost escalates further. Surely, the Trump administration now faces a similar strategic dilemma.
Air strikes against Iran, dubbed Operation Lion’s Roar, are wide-ranging and have met with initial success as they resulted in the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader and many high-ranking military officials. Trump, based on the initial success of the air strikes, framed the operation as short-lived and said that “weeks, not years, will take to culminate it”. However, it seems that both the US and Israel underestimated the power of Iranian retaliation and thus the American administration now talks about the campaign lasting significantly longer if objectives are not met. What are those objectives? From preventing nuclear threat to degradation of Iranian military capability to regime change, the objectives have not been in any given order or truly clear. Seeing the response of the Iranian public, which has come out in hordes to support the current Iranian regime, President Trump has now come up with a new idea that “future Iranian leadership might emerge from within the existing regime.” All this signals the American-Israeli ambiguity about the endgame.
I would like to quote two big mistakes that the US committed during the Vietnam War. These mistakes are once again being committed by the US in the war against Iran. The first is about the velocity of war outpacing the policy, and the second is about not understanding the human terrain.
The analogy of eating soup with a fork well describes the situation where military operations proceed with speed, but strategy and policy lag. In such a situation, the political leadership is bound to become reactive rather than strategic. President Trump is behaving in a similar way. His current emotions are resulting in conflict escalation, and it is the military momentum and the operational reality that are guiding and leading his policy instead of his policy guiding and directing the military operations. This is an illegal war that can only be stopped by undertaking and initiating legal processes such as deliberation in UNSC or US Congress. Hundreds and thousands of airstrikes daily reflect an operational momentum that outstrips traditional diplomatic and legal processes to halt this war.
When the speed of war outpaces policy, there is likelihood and increased risks of the war expanding and turning into a protracted conflict rather than a short and decisive campaign which, in the case of the Iran War, both the US and Israel imagined. In such a scenario, where battlefield momentum is outpacing policy, the fear of escalation is more than the hope of de-escalation. This means the US is committing a similar mistake that it committed in Vietnam, where escalation had become emotional, withdrawal had become humiliating, and policy had become hostage to military momentum.
The second mistake is about not understanding the human terrain – the social, cultural, political and psychological dimensions of the population of a country against which the aggressor has initiated the military campaign. The US failed to integrate this understanding into its policy when it fought wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and it continues to make a similar mistake as it fights this war against Iran. To consider Iran as a fragmented and fractured insurgent population or a nation whose government was on the brink of collapse was an American mistake. Iran has a highly organised, hierarchical political and religious structure centred on the following of the dictates of the Supreme Leader and the clergy that stands beside him.
The adherents of the brave sons belonging to the great Persian Empire, Iranians, are no pushovers. They have a strong national identity and have historically always united to fight foreign aggression. These are the core realities of Iranian human terrain. An American regime change strategy that ignores these core realities is likely to face the same pitfalls that the US faced in Vietnam. It is an American mistake to misread and misjudge the level of Iranian resilience and resistance. The US must soon make a choice – continue escalation to avoid humiliation or withdraw and absorb political cost.