On 28 February 2026, the United States, under President Donald Trump, in concert with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, launched a major military assault on Iran, a campaign framed as pre-emptive, decisive, and historically necessary.

Supporters hailed it as a bold stroke to neutralise nuclear threats and regional destabilisation. Critics warned it could ignite a wider inferno.

Yet beyond the immediate strategic calculus lies a deeper historical question: has a great power once again marched into Persia, believing this time it will be different? From the Roman catastrophe at Carrhae to the overstretch of the British Empire, history offers sobering precedents. And contemporary analysts, including Fareed Zakaria, warn that the United States may be walking into what he calls an "imperial trap".

The Roman lesson: Carrhae and the limits of power

In 53 BC, the Roman triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus invaded the Parthian Empire, Rome's formidable eastern rival centred in ancient Persia. Rome was then the world's preeminent military machine. Crassus sought glory to rival that of Julius Caesar and Pompey. Instead, he encountered disaster at the Battle of Carrhae.

Parthian forces, masters of mobile cavalry warfare, decimated the heavily armoured Roman legions. Crassus was killed; thousands of soldiers died or were enslaved. Roman prestige suffered one of its greatest blows.

Carrhae demonstrated a recurring truth of imperial warfare: superiority in organisation and technology cannot compensate for strategic misjudgment, unfamiliar terrain, and an adversary fighting on its own civilisational ground. Persia was not merely another province waiting to be annexed. It was a rival world.

Persia: The graveyard of invaders

History repeatedly confirms that conquering Persia is easier than controlling it. Even Alexander the Great, one of history's greatest commanders, required years of brutal campaigning to subdue the Achaemenid Empire, and his empire fragmented soon after his death.

Later powers found even less durable success. Persia's enduring strength lies in four interlocking factors: vast and defensible geography, a large population with a strong identity, deep civilizational continuity, and strategic patience. Modern Iran embodies all four. It is not a fragile state but a resilient civilisation-state conscious of millennia of history.

The Caligula warning: Power as spectacle

Commentators sometimes invoke Caligula, the notoriously erratic Roman emperor, not because he invaded Persia successfully (he did not) but because he symbolises the danger of theatrical power divorced from prudence.

Ancient accounts describe him staging absurd military gestures, including declaring war on the sea. Whether exaggerated or not, the story endures because it captures a timeless fear: that empires sometimes perform strength rather than exercise it wisely.

In modern democracies saturated with media and political polarisation, dramatic military action can function as spectacle—projecting decisiveness at home even when strategic outcomes remain uncertain.

The 2026 campaign: Assumptions and risks

The Trump–Netanyahu operation reportedly targeted nuclear facilities, missile infrastructure, and senior military leadership across Iran. The stated objectives included degrading Iran's capabilities and potentially reshaping its political trajectory.

But military aerial strikes against a large, cohesive nation rarely produce neat political outcomes. Iran possesses a sophisticated doctrine of asymmetric warfare: Ballistic missiles and drones, proxy networks across the Middle East, maritime disruption capabilities, cyber warfare tools, and long-term endurance strategy. Even limited retaliation, such as threats to the Strait of Hormuz, could disrupt global energy flows and destabilise markets worldwide.

Fareed Zakaria's "Imperial Trap"

In his recent analysis, Fareed Zakaria argues that the United States is repeating a classic great-power error: overextension on the periphery while neglecting the core. For roughly fifteen years, American leaders sought to extricate the country from Middle Eastern entanglements. Yet Washington has now embarked on another major conflict in the region.

Zakaria draws a powerful historical parallel with the British Empire during its late-Victorian and early 20th-century phase. From the 1880s through the 1920s, Britain deployed forces across vast territories, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Jordan, responding to crises that, each seen in isolation, seemed urgent, but collectively drained imperial strength.

None of these interventions alone destroyed Britain's power, but together, they distracted, exhausted, and diluted it.

As Zakaria notes, great powers rarely fall because they are conquered. They decline because they dissipate resources on peripheral conflicts while failing to maintain domestic vitality and strategic focus.

Britain's precedent: Victory without renewal

The British Empire won many of those colonial campaigns tactically. Yet each victory imposed costs – financial, military, and political – that accumulated over decades. By the time Britain faced existential challenges in the mid-20th century, its capacity had eroded. The parallel is unsettling.

Even a successful intervention in Iran could demand prolonged involvement: stabilisation operations, reconstruction efforts, political engineering, security commitments, and regional containment. Such commitments can span decades, far beyond electoral cycles or initial public enthusiasm.

The "short war" illusion

Modern leaders often promise rapid, decisive campaigns enabled by advanced technology. Precision strikes, cyber operations, and intelligence superiority create the impression that war can be controlled and limited. History repeatedly contradicts this assumption.

From World War I to the Iraq War, conflicts expected to be brief became protracted struggles with unforeseen consequences. Iran, with a population exceeding 93 million and a strong sense of national identity, is unlikely to capitulate quickly. External attack, as has been seen over the last four weeks of conflict, may even strengthen domestic cohesion, rallying factions that otherwise disagree internally. Crassus underestimated this dynamic. Many modern planners have done the same.

Regional escalation and systemic risk

Unlike isolated conflicts, war with Iran risks cascading effects across the entire Middle East: attacks on allied bases, expansion of proxy warfare, maritime insecurity, energy market shocks, and humanitarian crises.

Moreover, major external powers could be drawn in diplomatically, economically, or militarily, transforming a regional conflict into a global one. Empires often discover too late that wars begun at the periphery reshape the centre.

Civilisational memory and resistance

Iran's political leadership frequently frames external pressure within a narrative of historical resistance to foreign domination, from ancient invasions to modern interventions.

Such narratives matter. They foster endurance and legitimacy even amid hardship. Military superiority can destroy infrastructure, but it cannot easily dismantle identity.

Could this become America's Carrhae?

Analogies must be used carefully; history does not repeat mechanically. The United States is not Rome, and Iran is not Parthia. Modern warfare, nuclear deterrence, and global institutions create new dynamics.

Yet, underlying patterns persist: overconfidence in military solutions, underestimation of adversary resilience, escalation beyond initial intentions, and strategic distraction from core priorities. If Zakaria's "imperial trap" thesis is correct, the greatest danger is not immediate defeat but gradual depletion.

Lessons for the present

Three enduring lessons emerge from the long history of Persian wars.

First, tactical success is not strategic victory. Destroying facilities or forces does not resolve political conflicts.

Second, geography and identity favour the defender. Large, cohesive societies can absorb punishment while imposing costs over time.

Third, empires fall more often from overreach than from invasion. As Zakaria reminds us, decline frequently begins at the periphery.

History's quiet verdict

Whether the 2026 assault on Iran becomes a decisive strategic success or the beginning of a prolonged quagmire remains uncertain. What is clear is that history offers warnings rather than guarantees.

Crassus marched east seeking glory and found catastrophe. The British Empire managed its far-flung crises successfully until cumulative strain eroded its dominance. The United States now faces a similar test of judgment, restraint, and strategic prioritisation.

Persia has humbled great powers not only through battlefield victories but through endurance, outlasting, absorbing, and exhausting those who sought to dominate it. If the United States has indeed stepped into an imperial trap, the danger lies not in a single battle but in a decade of distraction, depletion, and unintended consequences. 

In geopolitics, hubris rarely announces itself. It reveals itself only in retrospect, when the costs have already been paid. And history, patient and unsentimental, keeps score. 

 

Writer: Commodore Syed Misbah Uddin Ahmad, (C), NUP, ndc, afwc, psc, BN (retd), Director General, Bangladesh Institute of Maritime Research and Development (BIMRAD). Email: misbah28686@gmail.com