The Two Wars for Iran: The War in a Historical Context › American Greatness
Victor Davis Hanson
The rare quick and total victory over an enemy at little cost often ensures unquestioned political support in modern consensual societies.
In most cases, however, especially in the Western world, ongoing military success or failure is adjudicated through the lens of politics—in a way sometimes at odds with the reality of the battlefield.
Politicians answer to the people. The best do not drift with the prevailing winds. On the other hand, all must face elections, secure legislative support, and ultimately explain to voters the human and financial costs of a war and whether it was existential or optional—and, in the latter case, whether it was worth the costs.
By any purely military standard, in the current month-long war, Iran has been devastated by the combined air forces of the U.S. and Israel. Both nations achieved air supremacy early on. Iran has no air force or air defenses left. Its major warships are sunk. It has lost the ability to supply its terroristic appendages by air or sea. It has difficulty importing weapons from abroad. The Iranian military and the theocratic chain of command have been devastated. Iran’s population is restive, held in check only by the sheer level of murder carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on a regular basis.
So far, the U.S. military has suffered 13 fatalities and perhaps 300 wounded. Every life is dear. But given the horrific costs of prior fighting in the Middle East, the military has, in amazing fashion, curbed American losses.
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https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/31/the-two-wars-for-iran-the-war-in-a-historical-context/
