General Stanley McChrystal argues that the U.S. has historically overestimated aerial bombing's decisiveness while underestimating historical grievances, a pattern repeating in the current Iran conflict. The retired four-star general and Iraq War veteran discusses with New York Times columnist David French how America's three great military seductions—covert action, surgical raids, and air power—consistently fail to achieve lasting strategic outcomes, and warns that escalating tensions risk a prolonged quagmire despite advanced technology. The U.S. has repeatedly overestimated air power's ability to produce decisive military outcomes, from Vietnam to Iraq, because political will and commitment exist in people's hearts, not in targets that can be bombed away. Iran's historical experience of the 1979 revolution, the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, and Western interventions have created deep grievances that shape current regime commitment in ways American policymakers often fail to understand or account for.