Three Gulf Wars, One Lesson

Every spring semester, my "Introduction to Security Studies" course begins with Clausewitz's "On War." The goal is to help students grasp the most fundamental concept of military strategy. "War is the continuation of politics (policy) by other means." This famous Clausewitz quote captures the essence of strategy better than any other. To be strategic ultimately means to be "goal-oriented."

A nation may choose diplomacy to achieve specific policy objectives with another country, or at times resort to military means. In this sense, war is merely one of many policy instruments. What matters is not war itself, but the policy objectives it seeks to achieve. When clear policy goals fail to govern the planning and conduct of war, a paradox emerges: military victory accompanied by political and policy defeat.

Including the current Iran war, the United States has now fought three Gulf Wars. The first Gulf War in 1991 was America's campaign against Iraq. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented the strategic framework known as the "Powell Doctrine." First, policy objectives must be clearly defined and sufficient public support secured before going to war. Second, once engaged, overwhelming military force appropriate to the objective must be deployed.

The Powell Doctrine was a near-perfect modern application of Clausewitz's view of war—emphasizing clarity of policy objectives, the importance of public support, and the question of military means necessary to achieve goals. Powell himself reflected after reading "On War" that "a shaft of light from the past illuminated the military challenges of the present."

President George H.W. Bush clearly stated the war's policy objective: restoring Kuwait's territorial sovereignty after Iraq's sudden annexation. When the war proceeded more easily than expected, public opinion quickly clamored for toppling Saddam Hussein's regime. Yet Bush halted the war once Kuwait's sovereignty was restored. Removing Hussein would not have been militarily difficult, but concern remained that doing so might elevate rival Iran into a regional hegemon.

Bush famously hired a public relations firm to secure sufficient public support. The war began with air strikes, but its objectives were achieved through overwhelming ground force deployment.

President George W. Bush launched the Iraq War in 2003 with the stated policy objective of eliminating weapons of mass destruction. But he harbored grander ambitions: democratizing Iraq to spread democracy across the Middle East, thereby eliminating the root causes of terrorism. In the aftermath of 9/11, sufficient public support existed, and Bush secured a congressional war authorization to bolster legitimacy.

After air strikes, ground troops were deployed, and Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed within weeks. Yet full U.S. withdrawal took eight years. Democratization was a policy objective that military means alone could not achieve. If eliminating terrorism was the goal, no statistics show a meaningful decline in terrorist activity during the war. After the war, Iran emerged as a regional challenger—exactly as the elder Bush had feared.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's famous warning to President Bush at the war's outset is well known: "You break it, you own it"—the so-called "pottery barn rule." It was a caution that toppling an existing order through war means accepting responsibility for the chaos and reconstruction that follow. Bush did make efforts at Iraqi reconstruction. As a result, Iraq today has at least the formal and procedural framework of a democratic state.

After launching the third Gulf War without public persuasion, President Donald Trump's first statement was this: "We've created an opportunity for regime change—Iranian people, rise up and seize it." He intervened to "break" the system but shifted responsibility to an entirely unprepared population.

Subsequently, objectives were listed haphazardly—building a new Middle East order, eliminating an "imminent" threat, completely disabling nuclear capabilities—with no apparent consideration of appropriate means to achieve them. Trump said no ground troops would be deployed, then reversed himself to say they could be if necessary. He said he would use Kurdish forces, then denied it. The vacillation was constant.

This resembles not strategic action—setting objectives then selecting means—but the classic Trump approach of shooting first and finding the target later. The problem is that this approach is being applied to war, where human lives are at stake.

Iran's theocratic regime, which has massacred its own people, must end, and it must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons. But if those are the policy objectives, the current air-strike-centric military approach alone cannot achieve them. If the goal is fundamental regime weakening or collapse, non-military approaches must be pursued in parallel—genuinely enhancing and organizing Iranian civil society's capacity for resistance. Simple military strikes do not create these conditions.

There is no "good solution" to the Iran nuclear problem; the options are always between bad and less bad. The Iran nuclear deal was "like Swiss cheese, full of holes," but it remains a "less bad" option than airstrikes. Beyond combining nuclear negotiations, coercive diplomacy, and sanctions to limit nuclear capabilities as much as possible, few realistic alternatives exist. Indeed, after these air strikes, Iran's civil movement is likely to contract, and the theocratic regime will grow more hardline. Its obsession with nuclear weapons will intensify, and the United States has now given that obsession political legitimacy.

If the policy objectives of the Iran war were the collapse of the theocratic regime and elimination of nuclear capabilities, the United States—despite certain military and tactical gains—may already be losing this war at the policy and strategic level.