Don’t Ask How This War Ends
This analysis argues that the ongoing conflict with Iran should be viewed as a long-term historical struggle rather than a discrete war with a clear end point. It suggests that the conflict is rooted in deep-seated ideological and religious tensions that are unlikely to be resolved through traditional diplomacy.
Why it matters
It challenges the conventional desire for quick resolutions in foreign policy, suggesting a prolonged period of instability in the Middle East.
It is, unfortunately, the wrong question.
Contributor / Getty September 21, 2026, 6 AM ET Share Save During the 2003 Iraq War, then–Major General David Petraeus famously said to the journalist and historian Rick Atkinson, “Tell me how this ends.” It is the obvious query to be posed about the conflict with Iran, but it requires a different answer.
In the middle of a war, few people are inclined to take the longest view of its origins. The implications of the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia Herzegovina, in 1908, were probably of little interest to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, or General John J. Pershing in 1917. But the questions of when and why a war began are essential to understanding it.
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