Vice President Dick Cheney echoed the claim⁷. Baghdad fell in weeks. The opening looked decisive.
The occupation lasted nearly nine years.
Harvard’s Linda Bilmes later estimated the long-term costs of Iraq and Afghanistan at $4 to $6 trillion⁸. Brown University’s Costs of War project documents the wider ledger: hundreds of thousands killed, millions displaced, consequences that stretched long after formal withdrawals⁹. The beginning was fast. The ending proved elastic.
Afghanistan completed the arc. The invasion began in October 2001 with overwhelming support and a defined objective: dismantle al-Qaeda, remove the Taliban from power¹⁰. Kabul fell in weeks. It felt finished.
Twenty years later, the war ended with chaotic airlifts from Kabul’s airport and the Taliban back in control¹¹. Presidents promised drawdowns. Each inherited the inertia of the last.
War starts as strategy. It becomes inheritance.
Political scientists describe this plainly: wars persist because of uncertainty and commitment problems¹². Even when a bargain exists, neither side trusts the other not to exploit weakness tomorrow. Ending requires credible promises. War erodes credibility faster than it produces it.
Clausewitz warned that war is politics “by other means.”¹³ Once politics turns violent, it intensifies rather than simplifies. Positions harden. Rhetoric escalates. Compromise begins to resemble betrayal.
Which brings us to now.
Two days after Neil Sedaka died, as radio stations replayed “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do”, American aircraft were crossing into Iranian airspace.
The strikes were described as targeted and limited — leadership nodes, missile sites, infrastructure. Officials emphasized containment, not occupation, not regime change.
The structural signals were immediate.
Iran responded within hours with missile and drone retaliation¹⁴. Regional proxy networks signaled mobilization. Oil markets spiked on fears of disruption through the Strait of Hormuz. Legislators in Washington split along predictable lines. Pentagon briefings insisted the campaign would not become open-ended¹⁵.
This is what commitment problems look like in real time.
Each side signals resolve. Each must convince domestic audiences it will not blink. De-escalation becomes politically dangerous because restraint can be framed as weakness. Limited strikes invite calibrated retaliation, which invites counter-retaliation — and the logic shifts from the original objective to credibility itself.
The beginning of a war always sounds temporary.
It’s the ending that resists design.
Once blood is shed, stopping becomes an argument about meaning. If you halt too soon, was the sacrifice wasted? If you continue, how much more must be absorbed before it can be declared worthwhile?