I do rather hope Trump hasn’t been reading about how Edward I effected control of Wales, because one can already see how this might go wrong.
Edward’s solution, after all, had a certain brutal elegance. Identify a troublesome periphery, move in with force, and then stitch it together with a neat chain of castles. Not decorative ruins, but hard, functional instruments of control - placed with care, supplied reliably, and intended to remind the locals, day after day, who was in charge.
It worked, in the narrow sense that Wales was subdued. It also took years, consumed vast sums, and required a level of sustained commitment that modern democracies tend to rediscover only when it is far too late to turn back. Even then, it did not produce anything so tidy as lasting contentment.
One can imagine the briefing. Iran, troublesome. Coastline, extensive. Solution, obvious. A series of well-positioned strongholds, supplied by sea, projecting power inland. A proven model, if one is prepared to overlook the intervening seven centuries and the small matter of technological change.
The difficulty, as ever, is that the Iranians are unlikely to cooperate by behaving like thirteenth-century Welsh princes. Castles, however well sited, have an unfortunate tendency to attract modern munitions. Supply lines that look admirably clean on a map tend to become rather less so when someone starts interfering with them at range.
Still, there is a certain appeal in the clarity of it all. No messy talk of strategy, no ambiguity about intent. Just stone, logistics, and the quiet assumption that what worked for Edward I might, with a little adaptation, work again.
It is, at the very least, a comforting thought. Which is usually a sign that it ought to be treated with some caution.
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