Hassen Mrad/ShutterstockAfter the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, declared “dignified victory” despite a military defeat. He had survived the invasion, while his adversary George HW Bush was facing a recession at home. Bush would go on to lose the 1992 elections to Bill Clinton, who swept to victory with the slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid”. Even with Iraq’s armed forces devastated, Saddam was able to frame the military defeat as success: not even a coalition of 42 nations could unseat him. Following huge Republican losses in the 2026 US midterm elections, the Islamic Republic of Iran could claim a similar victory, even with the death of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.In 2024, Donald Trump ran on an electoral promise of “no more wars”. Two years later, American voters dealt his party a resounding defeat. Not only did Trump begin a war with Iran, but that war is fast becoming another “forever war” with no clear end in sight.But conflict between the US and Iran is arguably just the latest chapter in a very protracted forever war. The US-Israeli assassination of Khamenei on February 28 simply reignited a longstanding conflict between the US and the “northern tier” – a Cold War-era name for Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan – that has been in the making since the second world war. Leer más: Iran and the US have been at war for decades – and there’s no end in sight Weaponising timeTime is key to understanding this conflict. Iran weaponised time by waiting out the conflict, ensuring it lasted until US elections on November 3. While the US never declared a “forever war”, time was what defeated them – not on the ground, but at the polls. America’s military engagement with Iran can be traced back to the second world war, when its troops entered the country. They joined British and Soviet forces, who had invaded to prevent a German takeover.The Cold War therefore did not just begin in a divided Berlin, but also in Iran, when Truman ordered Stalin’s troops to leave northern Iran in 1946. Stalin’s refusal to withdraw at the war’s end triggered the 1946 Azerbaijan crisis. Leer más: JD Vance singled out Iran War for midterm rout – he didn’t say what should happen next in conflict From that point onward, the US viewed Iran, and its neighbours Iraq and Afghanistan, as a contiguous geographical zone. During the Cold War this “northern tier” area was seen as a barrier that could contain Soviet influence in the Middle East. Decades of Cold War proxy conflict led the countries of the northern tier to become the anti-American bulwark that the US is contending with to this very day. The US did try to prevent this by uniting the northern tier countries. The Baghdad Pact, later known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was modelled explicitly on Nato. Established in 1955, the pact unravelled just three years later when the pro-Western monarchy in Baghdad was overthrown in a military coup in 1958. The coup established a republic, and triggered a cascade of other coups that brought Saddam to power ten years later as vice-president. George W Bush gave his ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech on board the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 3, 2003. The warship is pictured here, with a banner bearing the speech’s main slogan. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Juan E. Diaz. (RELEASED) In 1979, Iran’s pro-Western monarchy was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic was formed, marking the formal end of the Baghdad Pact. In that same year, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.In 1980, the Iran-Iraq War broke out, with two former members of CENTO fighting each other. One tragic episode of the war offers a stark reminder of the longstanding US-Iranian fight over the Strait of Hormuz. In 1988, the US deployed a warship, the USS Vincennes, to the Gulf to keep oil flowing through the Strait. On July 3, the Vincennes downed an Iranian airliner after misidentifying it as an Iranian F-14 fighter. All 290 civilians on board the plane were killed. By then, Iran was in an eight-year war with Iraq, the longest conventional war in the 20th century. The downing of the airliner forced Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to accept a ceasefire.Since the end of the Cold War, the US has waged two wars against Iraq: the Gulf war in 1991, and the Iraq war in 2003. Though the Gulf war ended within a few months, the US kept 5,000 troops stationed in Iraq until 2003. Nor did the Iraq war end when George W Bush declared “mission accomplished” off the coast of San Diego in May 2003. The last American forces only withdrew from Iraq on September 30, 2026. Leer más: America’s final military withdrawal from Iraq is a major bonus for Iran America’s other forever war was in Afghanistan, and began in 2001. It only ended in 2021, with a hasty withdrawal from Kabul that allowed the Taliban – who the US had spent 20 years and trillions of dollars trying to oust – to swiftly come back to power.The third Gulf warIn January 2020, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qassam Soleimani, leading to widespread fears of a Third World War breaking out. It was, in fact, the opening salvo of a third Gulf war.But there was nothing inevitable about this latest round of the Iran war. In 2015, Iran entered a nuclear deal with the Obama administration that offered the greatest chance of peace between the two nations since 1979. Trump withdrew from the deal in May 2018. In May 2019, Trump ordered a carrier fleet to be deployed to the Gulfto pressure Iran into a new deal on his terms. A new deal has yet to emerge. All three Gulf wars have followed a similar pattern: a short conflict, with an extremely long tail. The 1991 Gulf war lasted six weeks, but US troops never left, and there was more than a decade of US airstrikes on Iraq to enforce UN sanctions. The 2003 Iraq War lasted less than a month, but led to a decades-long insurgency that ultimately birthed ISIS. In March 2026, Trump promised that the Iran War would last “four weeks”. It is currently approaching the nine month mark.But the reality is that any timeline is arbitrary. All of the US’ forever wars – the Gulf wars, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war – can be traced back to the end of the Cold War. The nature of conflict has, however, evolved beyond recognition since 1991. While it is outgunned by the US, Iran has spent months waging a complex, highly effective economic and cognitive war on the US. Tactics ranging from AI videos trolling Trump to weaponised fuel prices have turned the American public against the war, and against the politicians who have prolonged it. A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!Ibrahim Al-Marashi no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.