BookWag Special — Persian Shadows

America and Iran: A Reading List for Forever War

Still in Play: Persia, Balochistan, and Afghanistan, 1870

Letter from Tehrangeles

The Persians were not barbarians, Alexander said, but men who had been ruled by barbarians. — Plutarch, Life of Alexander

---

Dear Wags,

For thousands of years, Persia has been too complex to reduce to stereotypes and too important a civilization to dismiss. It has held its own on the periphery of rival empires and rarely submitted to them. Its engagement with the West dates back to the ancient Greeks, but the West habitually forgets the backstory.

The last Western conqueror of what is now Iran was Alexander the Great, beginning in 334 BCE; he did so by merging with it: marrying into Persian nobility, adopting Persian customs, and fusing East and West in a mode that scandalized his Macedonian generals. Even as he absorbed the Achaemenid Empire, he greatly admired its people and culture. Subsequent invaders of Persia—the Rashidun Caliphate, the Seljuks, the Mongols—to one degree or another, became Persianized. These empires are ancient footnotes. Persia persists.

However Donald Trump’s military adventure against the Islamic Republic plays on Fox News, he is no Alexander. The president has little understanding of Iran, ancient or modern; no affection for other cultures; no aptitude—or patience—for empire. He has that American quirk of starting the war clock on a whim and declaring victory long before it has run out. But he has unquestionably imposed this campaign on a reluctant world. The decision to bomb nuclear facilities—the most aggressive U.S. military action against Iran ever—will be judged by history. (At this writing, Trump scolded both Iran and Israel for not honoring an hours-old ceasefire.) What is clear is that Iran has a vastly different sense of time than America.

Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “completely and totally obliterated” is already being walked back by more cautious voices within his administration. There is little chance the Iranians will be coöperative with nuclear inspections to verify that, though Israeli intelligence within the Islamic Republic is formidable. The only way to ensure that Iran has permanently abandoned nuclear ambitions would be for there to be a new government in Tehran.

Or, as Trump floated on Truth Social: “It’s not politically correct to use the term ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a regime change??? MIGA!!”

Trump, the world knows, says all sorts of things; a major security risk to the president’s bombing campaign was his indiscretion. In any case, what began as support for Israeli air strikes became, in a matter of days, a shot to the heart of the “America First” doctrine Trump sold as gospel. What isolationists like the sidelined Carlson and Bannon failed to grasp is that MAGA is whatever Trump says it is. He will bend reality to circumstance, with the confidence that his base will never abandon him. Those who don’t get on board, like Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, pay a price. The Democrats, terrified of looking weak, are typically hamstrung.

And just like that, arguments against forever wars—what is our endless back-and-forth with Iran, if not that?—and nation-building have been, at least momentarily, set aside. There’s something poignant about watching those around Trump scramble to keep up. J.D. Vance is left to explain that we are somehow not at war with Iran, but with its insidious nuclear program—a parsing that may be lost on the Iranians, the Chinese, the Russians, and even our nominal European allies, who had been led to believe Trump was pursuing negotiations in good faith.

It is possible to spin this as a triumph of Churchillian realpolitik, rather than what it appears to be: another masterstroke by Bibi Netanyahu, whose views on forever war differ from those of podcasters. In Israel, there is jubilation over striking a blow against an enemy that has, for 46 years, explicitly threatened to wipe it off the map. More improbably, a hobbled Iran is also declaring victory—it still has the ballistic missile capability to hit Israel and the American air base in Qatar.

In Trumpian parlance, this may look like a deal in which everybody wins. Until the next airstrike. Large numbers of Americans—who may just recall Netanyahu and the last Bush administration confidently arguing for invading the much smaller nation of Iraq—have reason for concern. Trump loves to win and hates being pinned down, but there is no reconciling MAGA insularity with global power. America has been hopelessly implicated in the troubles of the Middle East for generations. Its perennial desire to flee the region can be undone with a single bomb.

Trump will bob and weave on his ultimate intentions in Iran, depending on the headline. In this, he is not so different from his predecessors. America’s tortured relationship with Iran predates not only its 47th president but the state of Israel by a century. Magical resets are not a feature of this exchange. What is constant is mutual fascination—and an enmity that nurtures, on both sides, a remarkable capacity to hold a grudge.