Get audio access with any FP subscription. Subscribe Now ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Get audio access with any FP subscription.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Is the U.S.-Iran conflict becoming a forever war? At first glance, it doesn’t look that way. Rising oil and gas prices, growing congressional pressure around the War Powers Resolution, and scant public support are putting pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump to end the conflict soon.

But if history is any guide, there’s a real chance the war continues to drag on.

Is the U.S.-Iran conflict becoming a forever war? At first glance, it doesn’t look that way. Rising oil and gas prices, growing congressional pressure around the War Powers Resolution, and scant public support are putting pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump to end the conflict soon.

But if history is any guide, there’s a real chance the war continues to drag on.

Why? Because a few core elements that have turned past conflicts into forever wars are present in this one, too. Those three components are high resolve by the weak, erosion of cost-benefit thinking by the strong, and weak institutional constraints to warfighting on at least one side.

Combined, they mean resisting the expansion of the Iran conflict into a forever war won’t be easy.

Resolve by the weak side in asymmetric conflicts helps bring about forever wars. Motivated by an existential threat to its survival, the confidence of the weak increases exponentially when it survives initial blows from the strong and enacts pain in return.

This age-old reality has shown up time and again throughout history, from the determined fight of the Boers against the British Empire to the mujahideen against the Soviet Union and the Taliban against the United States. In cases like these, the resolve of the weak fueled a capacity to absorb massive costs, and the wars dragged on for years.

Iran today is showing textbook levels of resolve. To the surprise of the Trump administration, it has weathered more than 16,000 U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, lashed out with historic levels of damaging regional strikes, and closed the Strait of Hormuz, causing so much economic pain that Trump was forced into negotiations. After every apparent setback, Iran intentionally seized more ships or launched more strikes to show it isn’t backing down.

Experts say that Iran is “built for endurance” and thinks it’s winning this war; this is understandable, since Tehran’s highest........

© Foreign Policy