Iran is Turning Out to be Another Vietnam but Worse

Security expert Ret. Col. Dencio Acop writes what the US and Israel might be misunderstanding about Iran, and how Iran might replicate the Vietnamese blueprint of winning against America.

COL Dencio S Acop (Ret), PhD, CPP | March 31, 2026

MANILA — Iran is turning out to be another Vietnam but even worse. For those unfamiliar with that war, the United States lost to a small and supposedly inferior Southeast Asian country. Long after that defeat was over, two of its veterans, one from each side, were talking. They were in a conference that was now surrounded by the atmosphere of peace and friendship.

The retired American colonel said to his Vietnamese counterpart, “You know, we had to fight you because you were spreading Communism all over the world.”

To which, the retired Vietnamese colonel replied, “All we knew was that you invaded and occupied our land, killing our people, and we had to defend ourselves with everything we had including our children.”

I think this little dialogue between two seasoned warriors who risked life and limb, and lived through the horrors of war, captures the true grit of wars, both offensively and defensively.

It also hints at how the ongoing war in Iran could turn out to be in the end. While some may think that the outcome of the war can be easily predicted by the quantity and quality of the arsenal lined up against an adversary, not nearly enough to assess the intangible passions and commitment hidden within the hearts and minds of the protagonists, especially those of the underdog.

Of course, material assets, warfighting skills of an army, and foreign support are essential to prosecuting and winning wars. However, even the superiority of these resources is not the sole criterion for winning wars and battles muddled by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. For instance, asymmetric warfare, employed by weaker armies, has proven effective. The Vietnam War is a classic example.

While America can argue that it won the body count battle, it eventually lost the holistic war because it gave up — unable to sustain the war indefinitely which the Vietnamese people were prepared to endure.

While the Vietnamese people capitalized on their proud culture of defending their freedom to the last man and woman, the Iranians are turning their religious fervor into a galvanizing spirit to defend their land from occupation and avenge the death of their Ayatollah.

Vietnam is the only country in the world that has never been occupied and ruled by a foreign power. The Vietnamese army decisively defeated the French army in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. American forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1973 following eight years of war.

It now appears that the Vietnamese blueprint for success is being replicated in Iran. For instance, the Iranians, like the Vietnamese before, value martyrdom as their greatest weapons system towards withstanding American and Israeli aggression.

The Americans, Israelis, and their allies could be misreading Iran’s capability and resolve if they think that Iran will simply capitulate due to the overwhelming military and economic offensives being unleashed upon it. No matter their optimism to get what they want and predict the outcome of the war, these western allies may be met with great disappointment as the fighting progresses.

Iran also has allies which sustain its war effort. These allies include Russia, China, Hezbollah, Houthi, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Hashd al-Shaabi militias. In terms of its warfighting capacity, Iran’s experience from its eight-year war (1980-1988) with neighboring Iraq helped develop the Iranian army into a more effective fighting unit.

The war, which caused around half a million deaths, was the deadliest conventional war ever fought between regular armies of developing countries. On its way to developing its own nuclear weapons, Iran is certainly not a push-over adversary by any standard.

Today, we hear about the possibility of putting boots on the ground in Iran. If this occurs, the war will not end any time soon. It will only escalate. Sending troops to occupy Iran means the casualty rate is about to mount. This should concern the American people.

As I have pointed out, not only does Iran have the warfighting capacity and capability, it also possesses the intangible resolve to weaponize its suffering towards protracted warfare against a powerful foreign occupier. While the western planners counted on internal, secular uprising against the Ayatollah to fuel their aggression, they miscalculated on how even such could be overpowered by unifying religious zeal to repel foreign aggression and avenge the murder of their Ayatollah.

Since the elimination of the older Ayatollah, his son merely replaced him. Short American memory also forgets that US ally, the Shah of Iran — ousted in 1979 — means that a non-secular culture has grown in its place since that period. This culture was a moral project which fused sovereignty with sacred history, as Hossein Dabbagh, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at London’s Northeastern University wrote. (Also read: Removing Ali Khamenei is done, but there is still a lot of work to do for the US and Israel)

To illustrate Iran’s religious fervor and non-appetite for foreign interference, the Iranians have developed martyrdom as one of their central organizing values. This embrace of martyrdom found its inspiration from the Battle of Karbala in 680 when an Umayyad army massacred Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein and his small accompanying party.

The Iranian people are now seeing the killing of their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during Ramadan as fueling another sacred struggle against Estekbar (foreign domination and aggression). The killing of their religious leader has activated the dormant Basij turning the entire population into a paramilitary force prepared to die as martyrs.

Thus, what the western aggressors will soon be facing is the sanctification of sacrifice through a war of “endurance and attrition to outlast them, surviving the blows, and betting that the political resolve in Washington and allied capitals will fracture before Iran’s own does.” (Also read: How long will Iran hold the world hostage in the Strait of Hormuz?)

Given this, external violence may not weaken Iran in the way the western aggressors expect. I echo the professor’s words when he assessed that political theology does not need universal belief to function. It only needs enough believers, enough institutions, enough ritual, enough fear, and enough war to turn suffering into cohesion.”

This war is, indeed, morally and politically dangerous. Both the US and Israel may be misunderstanding the kind of political and theological order they are fighting. And in their haste to end a protracted war with no end in sight, and a conflict they could eventually lose with the depletion of their material and moral capital, might be tempted to use their unconventional weapons systems. And that would be the end of us all.