When it comes to the bombing of Iran, the killing of supreme leader,

Harmony, and Iranian top brass, the unspooling of regional war and the prospect of a prolonged

conflict, it is very easy for me to distinguish between what I hope and what I fear.

What I hope is that the Islamic Republic just rolls over and gives up, that a nation

brutalized by this horrific regime emerges from this episode as a richer and freer society

whose stability extends peace across the Middle East. That is, I hope this moment represents a break from history.

What I fear is that history is repeating itself. Donald Trump has bombed Iran and killed its

leadership without a plan. It sometimes even seems without even the pretense of a plan or a timeline.

And in this sense, this feels to me like a bit of an eerie echo of a very American tenancy.

Go back to the 1960s, when President Linenby Johnson and his top advisors claimed that, quote,

limited pressure and modest escalation would stabilize Vietnam.

Instead, what happened is we tiptoed into the catastrophe

of war, which ended up spilling over into a regional calamity that killed millions of people.

In the Gulf War of 1991, George H. W. Bush bombed Iraq and sent aircraft to drop leaflets on

citizens and troops, telling them to rise up and topple their leader.

Instead, Hussein remained in power

and massacred tens of thousands of his own people.

In Somalia, the Bush and Clinton administration's

attempted regime change on the cheap again,

only to watch that end with Black Hawk down in Mogadishu

leading to a rapid U.S. pullback.

And then in Afghanistan, George W. Bush tried to break al-Qaeda and topple the Taliban

...