Three weeks into the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, a familiar pattern of strategic failure has begun to emerge. Washington launched the war without clear objectives, a defined theory of victory, or a viable exit strategy - the same combination that dragged the United States into prolonged conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Ilan Goldenberg, who served as Iran Team Chief in the Office of the Secretary of Defense under Obama and later as Special Adviser on the Middle East to Vice President Kamala Harris, laid out the argument in a detailed analysis for Foreign Affairs, "Hvylya" reports.
The current conflict may differ from past American wars in that it has not yet drawn in ground forces in great numbers. But the deeper strategic reality, Goldenberg argued, is the same. "Washington is once again fighting a weaker regional power without having clear objectives, a defined theory of victory, and a viable exit strategy," he wrote. The result is "a different kind of quagmire, but a quagmire nonetheless."
The asymmetry at the heart of the war favors Iran. For the United States to succeed, it must achieve expansive and ambiguous goals - regime change or an Iran so weakened it cannot destabilize the region or disrupt global oil markets. For Tehran, victory may simply mean survival and the ability to impose intermittent costs on the global economy through attacks that limit passage through the Strait of Hormuz or damage oil infrastructure in the Gulf states.
Goldenberg warned that the U.S. may now feel the urge to escalate - potentially deploying ground forces to seize Iranian facilities or backing separatist movements inside the country. But "the risks of these forms of escalation far outweigh their possible gains," he wrote. American history, he argued, offers repeated examples of wars entered with confidence and exited with difficulty, where fear of failure and the sunk cost fallacy only deepened the strategic predicament.
The Trump administration launched military operations without preparing the American public, and Trump's initial remarks - calling on Iranians to overthrow their government - effectively set regime change as the bar for success. That handed Iranian leadership a simple path to victory: endure. Three weeks in, the regime has done exactly that.
Also read: Trump Postpones Military Strikes on Iran Following Talks.