America’s Imperial Trap in Iran

Written by Fareed Zakaria | Originally published by Foreign Policy Magazine (source) | March 13, 2026

Trump’s decision to return to the Middle East echoes the strategic folly that undid Britain.

For around 15 years, many American leaders—including all three presidents in that period—believed that the country was too deeply entangled in trying to reorder the societies of the Middle East. They felt the more pressing challenges included rebuilding America’s industrial base and confronting the rise of China. Yet here America is, once again, fighting a war to reorder a society in the greater Middle East. And like in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, this war seems unlikely to turn out quite as its proponents may hope.

Why does this keep happening?

The United States Is Falling Into an Imperial Trap in Iran

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and the author, most recently, of Age of Revolutions. He writes a weekly Washington Post column, which is also syndicated in Foreign Policy.

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