By Vishwamithra –

“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” ~ Voltaire

Darius III was the last emperor of the Achaemenid dynasty, dethroned by Alexander the Great. With his fall, the Great Persian Empire—the heart of the Aryan world—ceased to be the dominant global power for centuries to come. Alexander the Great was no modern man; he was a titan of the ancient world, representing the very womb from which Western civilization eventually emerged. While Persia/Iran no longer seeks the role of a sole military conqueror, it maintains world-power recognition through its strategic control of energy routes, its advanced asymmetric weaponry, and its ability to influence the stability of the entire Middle East region.

On the other hand, the United States remains unparalleled on the global stage. Whether in terms of economic output, military capability, or technological innovation, it has maintained a leading role in global affairs since the mid-20th century. The constant feeding into the mainstream media and maintaining it with ruthless efficiency, America has come to world attention, and its current positioning as an unequal aggressor cannot be challenged in any world forum, be it the United Nations, NATO, or any other. Their entrepreneurial class, backed by massive capital and technical innovation, operates within exclusive networks to bolster America’s global dominance. This group not only secures immense financial rewards but has also become deeply embedded in the American psyche.

Notwithstanding its ostensible military and economic superiority, the United States has failed to achieve its strategic objectives in two major post-WWII conflicts: the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan. Her deliberate military involvement in the regime change in Iraq, and the cascading repercussions it entailed—namely, an utterly unstable political landscape in the Mideast region—are not very flattering global engagements.

Yet, the most humiliating episode in the chapter of American military dominance is its undignified exit from Vietnam. Vietnam, a nation-state, was not born yesterday. Its history runs through thousands of years. Her continuing unbroken story begins in 250 B C. Through her storied history, this culturally rich, agricultural heart of Southeast Asia defied the odds to maintain her independence, effectively defeating the mightiest power, America. Vietnam, a nation that has its roots deeply entrenched for thousands of years has schooled America in patriotic warfare. The Vietnam War remains a subject of intense debate among scholars, who struggle to fully understand its long-lasting, transformative impact on both American and Vietnamese society.

The twentieth century never paused its continuing sagas of war. Its incomprehensible fixation on military conflict—and the resulting unquenched thirst for arms by manufacturers—claimed countless innocent lives as collateral damage. The drama shifted to the Middle East: the land of oil. Yet the players remained the same. America was awaiting an excuse of sorts to go to war; The 9/11 tragedy and a manufactured lie- weapons of mass destruction (WMD)- gave that ignominious excuse. Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Osama Bin Laden, originally from Saudi Arabia, a nomadic messiah of Muslim zealots, became most wanted men in the first quarter of the twenty first century. The true motivation behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq remains a subject of intense debate among historians and political analysts.

Iraq’s origins go back to the history of Mesopotamia. She is as old and equally significant as Persia; as a primary cradle of civilization, Iraq is among the few places on earth that an archaeologist or anthropologist would consider a mandatory pilgrimage; Euphrates and Tigris rivers are still carrying the waters of our ancestors whose idolatry to the land was as immense as a modern day devotee to his or her religion. In that land, Americans did not find WMDs; instead, they found stiff resistance and unshakable pride of an ancient people.

On both these fronts, America was engaged in warfare with two nations whose history was as old as that of man himself. One cannot underestimate man’s love and loyalty to the land that he calls motherland. Modern day states may have not measured it right; nor has that faith for one’s land of birth been weighted in the correct dimensions and with correct tools. But that age-old allegiance to the land of birth, more often than not, has overwhelmed the latest arms and armory that America and Europe have manufactured.

It was just announced over the local television, while I am writing this column, that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Hosseini Khamenei was found amongst those who were killed in the first of these battles between America/Israel and Iran. This speaks volumes for the immeasurable value of Israeli intelligence services and the rapidity of action made available by the twenty first century warfare technology possessed by Israel and the USA.

Vietnam War was over in 1975. After 28 years, the Iraq-Afghan war was launched by the then US President George W Bush in 2003. In 2026, after another 23 years, America and Israel attacked Iran, another country which can boast about a proud civilization dating back to two thousand seven hundred years or more. The sustained Iranian Empire is understood to have begun with the rise of the Medes during the Iron Age, when Iran was unified as a nation under the Median Kingdom in the 7th century BC. By 550 BC, the Medes were sidelined by the conquests of Cyrus the Great, who brought the Persians to power with the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus’ ensuing campaigns enabled the Persian realm’s expansion across most of West Asia and much of Central Asia, and his successors would eventually conquer parts of Southeast Europe and North Africa to preside over the largest empire the world had yet seen.

In the early hours of February 28, 2026, American Pacific Time, the United States launched a massive military campaign against Iran- the cradle of one of humanity’s oldest civilizations. There is haunting irony in the way the world’s youngest superpower continues its volatile dance with the world’s most ancient cultures. Donald Trump, the leader of the United States of America, experiencing an unprecedented spiraling down of his approval rate at home may have been persuaded by his own injured pride to play his last ‘trump card’.

While at war, any party who is part of that war would use that war-scenario to bolster its own image and posture. If the leaders of any party to the war are found to be wanting in good image and begging to be recognized as winners at the local front, any conflict with an outside power always tends to unite, at least in the short run, the local population behind the political power behind the governing machinery. It has been found that on more than a few occasions, country’s have ventured into conflicts with their neighbors in order to win the hearts and minds of a gullible electorate.

On the evening of April 7, 1775, when Samuel Johnson, the18^th century English writer, made his famous pronouncement “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” he was not saying, I think, that it was wrong to love your country. Nick Duffell, in reviewing Johnson’s famous pronouncement, says thus: ‘The retreat to nationalism is often a flight movement born out of the mobilization of the Sympathetic branch of our Autonomic Nervous System, our inner instinctual safety mechanism’. One cannot wholly blame Donald Trump for taking a most dubious path to reorient himself and regroup his fellow travelers; but committing one’s country, her men and women in boots and the non-combatant consumer public to the vagaries of unpredictable military conflict could be not only dangerous, it could be utterly injurious to the collective psyche of the country.

The war is yet to complete twenty four hours; its trajectory, though seemingly bending towards the Israel/US forces, the long term repercussions and unintended harm brought unto innocent Iranians cannot be foreclosed.

Leonard Woolf began his famous book The Village in the Jungle, with the line: “All jungles are evil, but no jungle is more evil than that which lay about the village of Baddegama”. To paraphrase him ‘all wars are evil, but there is no war more evil than one that is being fought between two civilizations’. One would not know where this would end. Most of the recent global conflicts, including the Vietnam War and the Iraq/Afghan conflict never were predicted to last more than a ‘short’ time. But that short time was ultimately measured in decades.

What would Russia and China do? Would they come to Iran’s ‘rescue’ or would they stay aside? What would be the effects of war on oil prices. How would a country like Sri Lanka handle another fuel crisis? It is time for rhetoric to take a rest, and for hard facts and wisdom to prevail. But as history has told us, wisdom is the most precious but least present commodity at times of war.

Donald Trump may have his own understanding or misunderstanding of the current global situation; we are not privy to the information and data he, as the US president, is and it is utterly meaningless to argue for or against whatever the reasoning he may offer for the choice he made. But defiance of diplomacy is no argument for firm commitment to peace. Generations await our steady journey forward; if in that time we heed a single penny’s worth of advice, it is more valuable than all the hardware and human lives offered to the altar of war.

*The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com