The latest US-Iran War and the temporary has peculiarities of their own. They are quite significant in scales and would leave the world bleeding.
Tehran to start with, will face monumental political and economic challenges from its traumatised population, and contend with anger from its neighbours, isolating it within the region.
On the other hand, the US credibility is at test. It did not produce regime change. It only led to the promotion and consolidation of new, untested harder-line leadership at the head of the same political system.
Donald Trump faces numerous challenges but he cannot help blaming himself for the mess. The US President had 'framed' the conflict as both a military victory and a step towards regime change in Iran. Yet the war was ill-conceived, built on the assumption that it would be quick and decisive.
It could not bring in regime change and instead proved far more costly and damaging to US credibility.
Trump also faces a technical problem.
Without a ceasefire, Washington was facing increasingly dangerous escalation choices. Options included targeting Kharg Island or launching operations to reopen the strait of Hormuz. It also faced the possibility of acting on Trump’s threat to target civilian infrastructure – a move that would constitute a war crime. Each of these paths carried significant political and strategic costs.
Trump is also aware of his country's law and rules. There is one called the War Powers Act.
The federal law the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a federal law designed to limit the U.S. President's authority to commit armed forces to hostile foreign situations without congressional approval. Passed over President Nixon’s veto, it requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops and mandates troop withdrawal within 60-90 days unless Congress authorizes continued action.
So far, the US Congress has never used the War Powers Act to curb or control a President. That does not mean; the Congress will never use of the same.
The Senate last month (March 2026) rejected the Democratic-led effort to rein in President Trump on Iran as the U.S. and Tehran kept sending conflicting messages about how the war might end.
The near party-line vote was 47 to 53, falling short of the simple majority it needed to advance. Every Republican except Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against it, while every Democrat except Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania backed it.
Democrats had filed a handful of war powers resolutions to block Trump from continuing the military offensive against Iran without congressional approval.
Americans have a poor record of handling conflicts in three major areas. They include Vietnam, Afghanistan and even Iraq in more ways than one. In Vietnam it had lost 60,000 men and yet no lesson was learnt.
Failure of US goals is placed at different institutions and levels. Some have suggested it was due to failure of leadership.
Others point to military doctrine. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces...was indeed a dangerous illusion."
The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing illustrated another US miscalculation.
We are again at almost the same stage in 2026. Bombing has not dampened the great Persian spirit.
Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, "if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job."
General William Westmoreland admitted bombing had been ineffective.
A young Marine in Vietnam
The Joe Biden administration has supposedly focused on the 'decision' to leave Afghanistan. But what was important was to underline is that there is a difference between mere 'withdrawal' and the execution...how it is done.
The real issue haunting Biden administration was the 'shambolic' execution of the withdrawal decision. “This hasn’t been a 20-year war. It’s been one-year wars fought 20 times,” Reuters news agency quoted a US military official to convey the frustration with short-term thinking and a lack of consistency over four administrations - two Democratic Presidents and two Republicans.
In Afghanistan, the US exit was chaotic. The United States nevertheless completed its military withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 30, 2021, ending a 20-year war following a rapid Taliban offensive and the collapse of the Afghan government.
The ceasefire actually marks the start of a new but uncertain phase.
In 2026, with US forces still building up in Iranian region and the risk of renewed escalation hovering over the talks, there remains a real possibility that the ceasefire will collapse. This could take the form of new threats -- there would more pressure on the strait of Hormuz and incremental strikes or the extension of negotiations beyond their initial timeframe.
ends
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