Tariq Saeedi
As I watch the conflict enter its fifth week, a sobering realisation has settled in. What began as a calculated military operation now shows every sign of drifting toward the kind of prolonged entanglement that history warns us against.
The early assumptions about rapid decapitation, internal collapse, and swift regional realignment have not materialised in the way planners evidently expected.
Instead, the fighting has settled into a stubborn rhythm of strike and counter-strike, with mounting costs on all sides and no clear off-ramp in sight. If the present trajectory continues unchecked, the risk of a genuine quagmire grows more real by the day.
This is precisely the moment when policymakers, decision-makers, and senior leadership in Washington would do well to revisit a set of hard-earned principles distilled from one of America’s most consequential experiences of war. — Robert McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense during both the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam era, later reflected deeply on the limits of power and the dangers of miscalculation.
In the documentary The Fog of War and in subsequent leadership analyses, he and others crystallised seven foundational lessons that remain strikingly relevant whenever a nation contemplates or conducts military action.
The first is empathy with one’s adversary. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, understanding Khrushchev’s need to save face helped avert catastrophe. Today, any lasting resolution in the Gulf will require a similar willingness to see the conflict through Iranian eyes — their sense of sovereignty, their historical memory of invasion, and their deep attachment to national independence. Without that perspective, negotiations remain conversations between the deaf.
Second, rationality alone will not save us. Even highly rational leaders can misread signals, overestimate their own leverage, or underestimate the resolve of the other side. The current impasse illustrates how quickly a campaign based on best-case assumptions can settle into a war of attrition that no one fully wanted.
Third, there is always something beyond one’s self. National interest is real, but it exists within a larger web of regional stability, global energy flows, and the long-term credibility of international norms. Actions taken in one theatre ripple far beyond it, affecting allies, neutrals, and future crises alike.
Fourth, efficiency must be maximised, but never mistaken for victory. Data and technology can sharpen targeting and reduce certain risks, yet they cannot substitute for a clear political objective. The impressive speed of some early strikes has not translated into strategic momentum; instead, it has produced a hardened adversary and a lengthening list of unintended consequences.
Fifth, proportionality should guide every decision. The scale of force employed must bear a reasonable relationship to the ends sought. When that balance slips, the human and political costs begin to outweigh any tactical gains, and public support — both domestic and international — erodes. — This merges with the realm of war crimes.
Sixth, get the data — and keep testing it. Intelligence is never perfect, but decisions become dangerous when they rest on assumptions that are not continually challenged. In any conflict, the temptation to see only confirming evidence is powerful; rigorous, sceptical analysis is the necessary corrective.
Seventh, and perhaps most sobering, belief and seeing are often wrong. We tend to interpret events through the lens of what we wish or expect to be true. The Gulf of Tonkin incident remains a classic cautionary tale. In the present case, the assumption that removing key figures would fracture Iranian society or that regional partners would eagerly join the fray has not held. — Reality has proved more complex, more resilient, and more resistant to external orchestration than the initial models suggested.
These are not abstract philosophical points. They are practical guardrails forged in the fires of earlier conflicts.
Applied today, they point toward an urgent course correction: a deliberate, accelerated effort to find a mutually acceptable formula for de-escalation and eventual peace. No side can claim perfect foresight; all have miscalculated to some degree. The measure of statesmanship now lies not in doubling down on initial plans, but in recognising when adaptation and diplomacy must take the lead.
The human and economic costs continue to climb.
Civilian lives have been lost, infrastructure damaged, and regional stability strained. The longer the fighting persists without a clear political horizon, the harder it becomes to restore trust and rebuild what has been broken.
History does not repeat itself exactly, but it does offer patterns. The lessons McNamara and others drew from their own difficult experiences remain available to us. The question is whether we will have the wisdom to apply them before this conflict hardens into a quagmire that serves no one’s long-term interest.
The path forward will require difficult compromises on all sides. Yet the alternative — a drawn-out contest of attrition with no clean termination point — is one that the region, and the wider world, can ill afford. The time for reflection and renewed diplomacy is now. /// nCa, 26 March 2026