Hadn’t every president since, Donald Trump most boisterously of all, repudiated regime-change wars in the Middle East? To see this war as archaic, the last squawk of the Middle East hawks, is at once maddening and hopeful. But the Iran war exposes just how militarily overstretched and strategically undisciplined the US has become. If the US reluctantly binds itself closer to its Middle East allies, then today’s seemingly anachronistic violence may in fact become the wave of the future. So another failed war, an unpopular war, won’t be enough to prevent future ones.

Source: The Guardian March 30, 2026 22:30 UTC