As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, isn’t it time we learned the lessons of history? From Vietnam to 9/11, the War on Terror, and now Iran, America never seems to understand what ought to be obvious conclusions about its actions: that superior military power and overconfidence don’t guarantee victory. 

For neoconservatives in former President George W. Bush’s administration, the War on Terror — the invasion of Iraq specifically — was meant to erase the failure of Vietnam. Following America’s first military defeat, many worried that the nation was in decline, that its role in the world, whether it remained a force for good, was in question.Bush’s advisers, dubbed the Vulcans for the God of Fire, scoffed at such notions, arguing instead that America remained on the rise and needed only conviction and overwhelming power to defeat any threat. As author James Mann explained, the Vulcan “vision was of an unchallengeable America, a United States whose military power was so awesome it no longer needed to make compromises or accommodations.”Quick victory in Iraq was to be proof of both that conviction and power — but it wasn’t. Like Vietnam, Iraq descended into chaos and defeat.

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President Donald Trump suffers from the same afflictions as Bush: arrogance and a lack of imagination. It is now absurdly clear that America’s high-tech weaponry — a hallmark of the Donald Rumsfeld school of warfare — will not automatically result in victory, and that “lesser” nations, those composed of rabble, in Trump’s words,........

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