Steve I had read your blog post and am in complete agreement re the limited scope for escalation then – as opposed to now – and off course the obvious adjustments Lawrence would have had to make to is math if he had had satellite surveillance, UAVs, instant radio communication and supersonic air support to contend with. From Rob’s post
e.g. they may believe its a question of regime survival, or it may be that they believe they are somehow immune. If its the former, then diplomacy may work over time. If its the latter, sooner or later diplomacy will be ineffective.
what I was trying to argue was that – regardless of any lessons we could learn from Lawrence – Iran may well have viewed the situation at the end of OIF phase III as ‘a question of regime survival’. Iran and the US have obviously not learnt to play nicely together and the level of mistrust and propaganda is very high leading to an increased risk of escalation by miscalculation.
I went back to the blog to re-read the comments before writing this and found three new comments: Zenpundits (always worth reading), Ken’s (pithy and astute as usual) and this one which rather makes my point for me.
arifJAA :
Excellent article, excellent points.

With the Iranian youth largely anti-regime why we can't do the same to them eludes me. It's more than justified.

I have a confession...when I came back in 2003 I thought Iraq was the toehold and we were going to sweep the region...at least Iran and Syria. As the Iranian youth rose in spontaneous revolt at the time of the 2003 invasion I may not have been as foolish as I feel now, or perhaps I was not the only one fooled.
Anyone else care to share?

"*The American Army's seduction over Galula
*The Straight line drawn between Generals Abrams and Petraeus"

If LTC Gentile wants to draw eerie parallels to Vietnam...one of my early mentors was a SF Advisor in 1965. He said at the time of LBJ's major infusion of troops the Army officers of Company and Field Grade rank thought they would drive into North Vietnam. We know what happened instead.
[the bold is mine - JJ]

Leaving aside the reliability of “With the Iranian youth largely anti-regime”.
Also leaving aside the legality/moral legitimacy of The ‘Democratic Crescent’ dream arifJAA refers to it was prevalent at the time and it, along with, axis-of-evil status, calls for regime change, claims of WMD production and the carte-blanche afforded by the pre-emptive use of force doctrine combine to leave Iran with little choice but to view the US threat as existential. I would further argue that the US has, in its GWOT response to 9/11, ‘re-assessed’ its position on a large number of hitherto generally accepted norms of international behaviour (extraordinary rendition, treatment of prisoners (detention without trial & ‘enhanced interrogation’), the whole issue of State Sovereignty & fragile States and the aforementioned pre-emptive use of force). This combination has left other State and non-State actors– myself included – confused as to where the US stands and how it is likely to react in any given situation. Which leads me back to Rob & Steve’s point re escalation; how can any state now assess the likelihood of escalation, and if they can’t reliably, will they not default to planning for a worst case scenario: massive military build up and more nuclear weapon states.
Pre 9/11 I would have accused anyone who told me that within five years the US might think it had the right to march an army through the Middle East, replacing regimes it did not like as it went, a paranoid lunatic – I wish I could say the same today.