Could Trump’s Iran ‘excursion’ be a bigger global turning point than Vietnam?

The far shorter Middle East war has rapidly revealed the strategic weakness of US firepower in an interconnected world In 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 justific...

By Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor