The conflict with Iran is over. Or maybe it isn’t.

Listen to this article

As soon as it began, there was breathless talk of when it would end: days, weeks, perhaps months. Almost no one said it might last years.

Perhaps the 12-day conflict last June created an unrealistic expectation of a short war. But the twenty-first century contains enough ominous lessons to make us more realistic.

Democratic leaders always frame their wars as quick events to have the best chance of generating support. A limited intervention with clear goals for a great purpose is easier to sell than an open-ended war with a crippling cost in blood and treasure.

In response, the decision-making process has developed a built-in bias towards short conflict.

In Western democracies, wars start with a meeting. Leaders sit around a table with military and intelligence chiefs to discuss whether to fire missiles and deploy military assets and personnel. Objectives and risks are assessed. In the end, the President or Prime Minister has to make a decision.

Whatever the reason to intervene - defending an ally, preventing a humanitarian catastrophe, toppling a criminal regime, supporting one side in a civil war - the analysis is seen through the prism of the present day and likely outcomes in the very near future. No one in the room is asked to predict the........

© LBC