A contrast between President Donald Trump’s war with Iran and a previous conflict has been flagged by a war scholar.
Trump’s military conflict with Iran has emerged as one of the most consequential failures of his second term. The war, launched without congressional authorization, has devastated regional stability and undermined American credibility with traditional allies.
Domestically, the conflict has fractured the MAGA movement, with prominent figures like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly opposing the war as a betrayal of “America First” principles.
Historian Hai Nguyen believes there are parallels between how Iran has reacted to US strikes and how Vietnam responded to a boots-on-the-ground deployment in the 1960s.
Salon columnist Andrew O’Hehir wrote, “From the beginning of this conflict, the Iranians identified the fundamental weakness of U.S. strategy, which was based on a litany of false assumptions, starting with the premise that total victory could be achieved with air power (something that has never happened in the history of warfare) and that killing Iran’s senior leaders would cause the regime to surrender or collapse.
“Trump and Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and whoever else somehow persuaded themselves — or allowed Netanyahu to persuade them — to ignore the obvious Heffalump trap that was right in front of them, that being yet another protracted, expensive and massively unpopular foreign war likely to crater or destroy a presidency.
“Hai Nguyen, a Vietnam War scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School, told [Foreign Policy columnist Michael] Hirsh that he saw history literally repeating itself. Like the Viet Cong of 50-odd years ago, the Iranians have perceived the American superpower’s Achilles heel: ‘They understand that the U.S. could drop thousands of tons of bombs, but it does not possess the patience to withstand a prolonged war.’
“In refusing to negotiate despite the risk of further devastation and the immense hardship inflicted on its own people, the Iranian regime is observing a time-honored principle attributed to Napoleon: Never interrupt your opponent when he’s making a mistake.”
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