Every War Ends at the Table: America Keeps Negotiating With the Enemies It Set Out to Destroy

Abstract:
The United States can destroy almost any target it chooses, yet for half a century it has repeatedly ended its wars by negotiating with the enemy it set out to defeat. In 1973, Washington signed the Paris Peace Accords after talks with North Vietnam and withdrew; Saigon fell in 1975. In 2020, it signed an agreement with the Taliban in Doha; the Taliban entered Kabul in August 2021. In Iraq, it left in 2011 without a defeated enemy at any table. In 2025, after more than 1,000 targets struck in Yemen and seven Reaper drones lost, Washington accepted an Oman brokered ceasefire with the Houthis that left their confrontation with Israel untouched. In the Iran war that began on February 28, 2026, a June ceasefire collapsed, and the two sides again exchange messages through Qatar and Pakistan, with Tehran setting seven conditions and Washington responding. This article argues that American power is measured in targets destroyed while its opponents measure success by survival. Fikr Institute judges that America can start wars and destroy targets, but repeatedly cannot end them without the consent of the enemy it set out to destroy.

Main Article:
The United States can destroy almost anything it chooses to target. The record of the last fifty years shows something it cannot do as easily: end a war on its own terms. Again and again, the war ends the same way, with American officials at a table, negotiating with the enemy they set out to defeat.

Vietnam: Paris

The United States brought overwhelming air power, artillery and resources to Vietnam. The war still ended in negotiation. On January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed after talks between Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho. The agreement allowed American forces to withdraw, and the last combat troops left on March 29, 1973. Fighting resumed before they were gone [1]. In April 1975, Saigon fell [2][1]. Washington had negotiated its exit with the government it had fought to stop. That government then won.

Afghanistan: Doha

In 2001, the United States removed the Taliban from power in weeks. Nineteen years later, on February 29, 2020, the American envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar signed an agreement in Doha setting a timeline for American withdrawal, in return for Taliban security commitments [3]. On August 15, 2021, President Ashraf Ghani fled and the Taliban entered Kabul [4]. The movement removed in 2001 was the movement Washington negotiated its departure with, and the movement that inherited the country.

Iraq: an exit without a victory

Iraq ended differently but no better. The United States destroyed the army of Saddam Hussein and his government in 2003. Its last combat troops left in December 2011, after nearly nine years [5]. There was no surrender to sign and no defeated enemy at the table. There was only a departure.

Yemen: Oman

The pattern is not only historical. In March 2025, the United States began daily air strikes on the Houthis in Yemen. In under two months it dropped more than 2,000 munitions on more than 1,000 targets, at a munitions cost of more than 750 million dollars, according to a US official. The Houthis shot down seven MQ 9 Reaper drones worth more than 30 million dollars each, and an F/A 18 fighter fell off the carrier Harry S. Truman while it manoeuvred to avoid a Houthi missile [6].

On May 6, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would stop bombing the Houthis, "effective immediately," saying they did not "want to fight anymore." The Foreign Minister of Oman confirmed a ceasefire under which neither side would target the other in the Red Sea and Bab al Mandab. Israel was not covered, and the Houthis said their position on Gaza had not changed [6]. The weaker side kept its war with Israel. The stronger side ended its own.

Iran: the table again

The war with Iran began with American and Israeli strikes on February 28, 2026. An interim ceasefire in June collapsed, and on and off strikes resumed [7]. Today the two sides are again exchanging messages through intermediaries, including Qatar and Pakistan. Iran is reviewing an American response to its proposal on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Washington wants the nuclear programme addressed first. Tehran wants talks to begin with the strait [7]. On October 11, Mohsen Rezaei, the head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, called the American response "insufficient" and said Washington had accepted some of the seven Iranian conditions but not others [8][7].

Read that carefully. Seven months into a war against the most powerful military on earth, it is Tehran that is setting conditions, and Washington that is responding to them.

The measure of victory

The United States measures its wars in targets struck, munitions dropped and commanders killed. Its opponents measure theirs in a simpler unit: whether they are still there when the Americans want to leave. By that measure, Hanoi, the Taliban and the Houthis all won the only contest that mattered to them. None of them defeated the American military. Each outlasted it, and each ended up across a table from it.

The United States has won wars. The defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945 and the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 are proof that it can. But in those wars the goal was to defeat an army. In the wars that followed, the goal was to remake a country or break a political movement. That is the kind of goal bombs do not achieve.

Fikr Institute judges that American military power is real but strategically spent in a specific way: it can start wars and destroy targets, but it repeatedly cannot end them without the consent of the enemy it set out to destroy. Paris, Doha and the Oman deal were not exceptions. They were the pattern. The messages now passing through Qatar and Pakistan suggest Iran may be the next entry on the list.

America decides when its wars begin. Its enemies decide when they end.

References:
1. Harvard Kennedy School, Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia. Fredrik Logevall, 50 years later, the legacy of the Paris Peace Accords is not one of peace. January 26, 2023.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Fall of Saigon. Accessed October 12, 2026.
3. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. US, Taliban sign deal to end war in Afghanistan. February 29, 2020.
4. Al Jazeera. Afghan President Ghani flees country as Taliban enters Kabul. August 15, 2021.
5. Al Jazeera. Last US combat troops leave Iraq. December 18, 2011.
6. Associated Press. Trump says the US will stop bombing the Houthis of Yemen after rebels say they will stop targeting ships, as carried by ClickOrlando. May 6, 2025.
7. Reuters. Iran says it will reply to US response on Hormuz proposal once review over, as carried by Business Recorder. October 12, 2026.
8. Fortune. Senior Iranian official threatens to attack cables, data centers and AI facilities in the region if the war escalates again. October 11, 2026.