I was standing outside of a lounge in Scotland having a conversation with a friendly Scotsman who was a veteran of the First Gulf War.

“America has never won a war where it didn’t have allies,” he said.

I tried to point out that we managed to fight our Civil War without foreign allies. He countered that the presence of so many Irish and German immigrants in the ranks had helped to tip the balance in favor of the Union.

In light if the recent unpleasantness in Iran, we would do well to acknowledge the wisdom of his analysis. We entered both World Wars late from the perspective of our friends in the United Kingdom, but we shared in that victory with them and the Russians. We fought to a draw in Korea with allies under the United Nations and came up short in Vietnam when we tried to go it alone.

The First Gulf War included an international coalition that led to a quick and decisive victory. Our subsequent efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan included allies but the results were dimmed by our efforts to impose our ideas about nation-building on a people who rejected them. As happened in Vietnam, public support dimmed as the expense of trillions of dollars on failed nation-building came up against the reality that we found we couldn’t afford similar developments at home and that the Afghans largely didn’t want what we were offering them.

The lesson seems to be that victory depends on allies, a clear and defined mission, a receptivity tour presence, and the support of the American people.

Then there is Iran, a country where the American people have a long memory of hostility but little appetite for aggression. If we check off the criteria for success:

• Support of allies. With the exception of an increasingly difficult Israel, no.
• Support of the American people, not even at the beginning.
• A cultural reality for nation-building, not a chance.

The president seemed to believe his most optimistic advisers that the people of Iran would respond well to being bombed. That didn’t happen. It’s one thing to have an awful government at home, it’s quite another to be attacked by foreign enemy.

Presidents need to consider these realities before they launch a war of choice, regardless of the promises made by our military. Maybe then we might actually win a war again.

David Parrella lives in South Hadley.