n a 1965 speech justifying the war in Vietnam, Lyndon B Johnson argued that the goal was to ensure “every country can shape its own destiny” since only in such a world could the US secure its own freedom. However, he also admitted “such were infirmities of man that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace”.
It was the kind of elegant justification of the country’s moral mission to which successive US presidential speechwriters have turned at times of war.
Assured by limitless military superiority and filled with such noble intent, US presidents have repeatedly been lured into launching wars only to find themselves confounded, ensnared and then broken by their inability to overpower an inferior opponent they wholly misjudged.
It seemed safe to assume that this was a fate that would never befall Donald Trump. He was implacably opposed to endless wars that seemed disconnected to the everyday lives of his supporters. He would never equate military power with military victory.
Yet Trump’s “little excursion to Iran”, judging by the drafts of the potential peace agreements that are circulating, is being universally perceived as a defeat. Almost regardless of the outcome – most likely a return to the old status quo – the war looks ill-conceived, a monument to confused objectives, bad planning and misplaced assumptions.
In scale, of course, the current conflict does not match the Vietnam war, which went on for years, led to the deaths of 58,220 US soldiers, and is often perceived as the totemic and unmatchable example of US hubris. By comparison with the Vietnam odyssey, Iran feels more like a day trip.
But in terms of consequence, it is still possible that the “excursion” will prove to be the bigger geopolitical turning point for the unrivalled superpower, the moment when the US will have to concede it mishandled a war not just because it had no convincing battle plan, but also no grand strategy to match how the contemporary world works. In an interconnected world, Trump believes progress is achieved through conflict, not cooperation.
Ironically for Trump, the shadow of Vietnam has always loomed large, and not just because he repeatedly dodged the draft. In many ways his political appeal is born of Vietnam. The Pulitzer prize-winning author Fredrik Logevall, professor of history at Harvard University, recently argued that “many of the troubles that plague America today – alienation, resentment, cynicism, the mistrust of government, the breakdown of civil discourse and of civic institutions, and the lack of accountability in powerful institutions – have their roots in the Vietnam war era”.
“You could argue that Americans went from naivety at the outset of the Vietnam era to cynicism – and cynicism that alienates us from the government, threatens democracy because it destroys the power of the people to believe in change, and to work for change,” he said.
It is in this polarised political ecosystem that Trump was to blossom….
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/may/31/donald-trump-iran-excursion-vietnam-war
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The Ghosts of Kennan: Lessons From the Start of a Cold War. By Fredrik Logevall
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Harold Pinter: Nobel Prize lecture; 2005
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The US left Vietnam 50 years ago today. The media hasn’t learned its lesson
