There is a particular kind of strategic catastrophe that announces itself dressed in the garb of bold necessity. History's statesmen rarely declare that they are about to blunder into an unwinnable quagmire; they speak instead of existential threats forestalled, of windows of opportunity closing, of regimes too dangerous to be allowed to survive.

It is a language we have heard before. We are hearing it again. On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a series of strikes against Iran, aimed, their governments said, at inducing regime change and eliminating Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The strikes came at a peculiarly telling moment: just before hostilities began, Oman's foreign minister had announced a significant breakthrough in indirect US-Iran nuclear negotiations, with Iran agreeing to never stockpile enriched uranium and to full IAEA verification.

Peace, we were told, was "within reach." It was destroyed from the air before the ink of any agreement could dry. To a student of Middle Eastern history, the parallels with October 1956 are not merely suggestive — they are, in their essential structure, almost embarrassingly precise.

Recall the anatomy of the Suez adventure. Britain and France, chafing at the nationalist pretensions of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the loss of the canal, entered into a secret arrangement with Israel.

The plan was elegantly cynical: Israel would attack Egypt across the Sinai; London and Paris would then "intervene" as ostensible peacemakers, demanding both sides stand down from the canal zone — which they knew Egypt would refuse — thereby furnishing a pretext to seize the waterway themselves.

The justifications offered to the public shifted kaleidoscopically: it was about freedom of navigation; it was about containing Soviet influence; it was about preventing a dangerous authoritarian from acquiring too much power.

What it was actually about, stripped of its rhetorical dressing, was the reassertion of waning imperial authority and the settling of regional scores under the cover of high principle.

Now examine what we have been told about the Iran war's origins. Trump administration officials have offered conflicting explanations for starting the war: to pre-empt Iranian retaliation against US assets, to ward off an imminent Iranian threat, to destroy Iran's missile and military capabilities, to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, to secure Iran's natural resources, and to achieve regime change.