A boy peers into a damaged residential building that, according to Iranian authorities, was hit by a strike on March 4 during the U.S.-Israeli military campaign, on April 14, in Tehran, Iran.Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
Think of the past eight weeks this way: Analogies Gone Wild.
It’s been a period when the promiscuous use of purported historical antecedents have been floated with the frequency of explosions on Truth Social. It’s been years since there was public discussion of the Suez Crisis of 1956, but there it was, on the front page of The New York Times, late last week.
Another seldom-referenced conflict, the French and Indian War of 1754-1763, appeared in its pages two days later. Comparisons with the Vietnam War have become so frequent in recent weeks that hardly anyone gives them a second look any more. The same goes for the Iraq War.
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The situation boils down to what you might think of as a face-off between George Santayana’s warning that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and the funny maxim − often attributed to Mark Twain − that “history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”
Before someone compares this period to the 1938 Munich summit or to France before the 1954 disaster at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, let’s examine some of the ways commentators and politicians are raising comparisons that don’t quite fit.
Vietnam, late 1950s to mid-1970s
Comparison: The “quagmire” description often applied to the U.S. experience in Vietnam seems to reflect the fear harboured by some critics of the Iran war who regard it as an apt metaphor for the fact that there is no easy way out of the fighting against a determined foe concerned about its own sovereignty.
Critique: The Vietnam War was a Cold War proxy fight between the capitalist West, predominantly the U.S., and its communist rivals in China and the Soviet Union. At the heart of it was the American concern that the fall of Vietnam would lead to the fall of other countries in Southeast Asia and the irresistible march of communism across the globe − the now-discredited “domino theory.” The risk of falling dominos in the Middle East is low.
Iraq, 2003-2011
Comparison: In another confrontation involving purported weapons of mass destruction, many adherents of Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement feared Iran would turn into one of the “forever wars” the President vowed he would not launch.
Critique: Despite claims from otherwise credible figures (especially Secretary of State Colin Powell, who told the United Nations Security Council in February, 2003, “Every statement I make today is backed up by solid sources”), Saddam Hussein’s regime did not possess weapons of mass destruction. Iran doesn’t have them but desperately wants them.
Korean War, 1950-1953
Comparison: Besides being a relatively long war, the Korean conflict was undeclared. President Harry Truman called it a “police action,” kind of like Mr. Trump describing the Iran war as a “little excursion” or Russian President Vladimir Putin describing the war in Ukraine as a “special military operation.”
Critique: The important difference is that the U.S. effort on the Korean Peninsula was approved by the United Nations and joined by other countries, including Canada, which contributed 26,700 military personnel (516 were killed) and followed up by seconding some 7,000 troops as peacekeepers between 1953 and 1957. No U.S. allies, with the exception of Israel, joined the Iran effort − and many actually criticized U.S. involvement, to Mr. Trump’s distress and fury.
Suez Crisis, 1956
Comparison: Israel joined with France and Great Britain in a military operation against Egypt. This juxtaposition is particularly appealing, possessing as it does a vital waterway (the Suez Canal 70 years ago, the Strait of Hormuz today) and the refusal of global powers to join the military operation (the United States then, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and many others now).
Critique: Implicit in this comparison is the notion that the Suez Crisis marked the beginning of the end of the global influence of two major colonial powers − France and the U.K. Massive decolonization did follow, the result of what British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan described four years later as irresistible “winds of change,” explaining, “Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.”
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It may be too early to declare the end of American power, which attracted worldwide attention with the firepower and technological wizardry it displayed in five weeks of combat in Iran. Nonetheless, the name Edward Gibbon (author of the The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) will continue to be referenced until it is clear that American suzerainty has decisively declined and fallen.
Confession: I’ve cited the Suez Crisis in these pages, especially in analyses published this year, though generally to argue that the Iran situation diverted from the particulars and historical themes of the 1956 episode. Even so, broadly speaking, I have sinned. Forgive me please, dear reader.
Conclusion: Mark Twain wins, in an overtime shootout. History rhymes. Or appears to us in blank verse. But maybe the real winner is Henry Ford, who said, “History is more or less bunk.”
Prediction: Some time decades from now, commentators will compare a future engagement as a repeat of the Iran war of 2026. They’ll be wrong, too.