Not a day passes without Iraq and Iran appearing in the news headlines (1). While American, British and other allied troops work under terrible conditions to bring order to the chaos caused by insurgents in Iraq, there now are murmerings of plans for American military strikes on assets in neighbouring Iran. As it frames its military policy for dealing with Iran, The White House and its allies, might pause a while to reflect on the history of such operations in the region. History may not provide exact parallels, however, some lessons can be drawn. Using the experience of the Romans as my examples, here is my attempt to articulate those lessons.

From Augustus to Constantine, the Roman Empire in the Near and Middle East expanded step by step, southward to the Red Sea and eastward across the Euphrates to the Tigris. At various times, Roman dominions included the lands now known as Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Notably absent from the list is Iran or any of the -stans further East. Yet Alexander of Macedon's conquests did so, stretching to include all the lands from Pella to the Punjab. He even stayed in Persepolis, now in Iran, before destroying it (2). So why did not the empire of the Romans extend so far east?

For one thing, in the intervening three hundred years, the world had changed. Where it was the Persians for the Greek-speaking poleis in the 5^th to 3^rd Centuries BCE, for the Romans it was the Parthians and Sassanids. They were the militaristic successors to the Persians, whose dominions extended over what is now Iran and Iraq, to Syria in the West and Georgia in the East. They were formidable neighbours of the Roman Empire and more than once, Roman emperors and their policy advisors underestimated both their military prowess and cultural sophistication. The clash of these two civilisations provides us with very interesting case material from which to tease out lessons that might teach us something about how we should approach modern conflicts in the same region.

First, the history. The most comprehensive historical survey of the region under the Romans is The Roman Near East: 31 BC-AD 337 by Fergus Millar of Oxford University (3). A reading of it suggests problems in the region are age-old and echo down the centuries to our own time.

According to Millar, before 66CE, the Roman presence in the Near East was essentially a bullwark against Parthia. Rome's direct influence was minimally felt and the governments of the Near East were client kingdoms rather than imperial provinces. It was a policy that had been used and worked well elsewhere in the Empire and it was often a precursor to full annexation on the death of the vassal.

Just as in modern times, Roman policy in the region was bound up with affairs on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Since Herod The Great, the population in the area known as Iudaea (approximately Israel) had lived uncomfortably with administrations chosen by Rome. For some it was finally too much and war broke out, as recorded in detail by Flavius Josephus. The so-called First Jewish War (66-73BCE), however, drastically changed the political landscape of the Near East. Millar writes,

After the First Jewish War and the uneasy peace that followed, Rome's involvement in the Near East was more direct and "came to resemble an integrated provincial and military system" (page 80). In the 130s, it seems Hadrian set out to found a colonia at Jerusalem and with it settle a large gentile population. If this was not provocation enough to the indigenous Jewish population, there was also a ban of circumcision.

So to our first lesson.

The Second Jewish War erupted in the Spring of 132, pitting rebel leader Bar Kochba against the Emperor Hadrian. For three and half years, a non-Roman administration ruled in the region as a self governing state within the borders of the Empire. The Roman response was the ancient equivalent of "shock and awe". As has been said to modern terrorists, "you can run, but you cannot hide". Four legions, 24,000 heavily armed men at full strength, were deployed and the rebels were ruthlessly hunted down.

Rome's punishment was brutal. In the aftermath, the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem and wider Judaea, in what has since became known as the diaspora. Jerusalem was renamed Colonia Aelia Capitolina, with a temple to Iuppiter Capitolinus at its heart. The very "name 'Iudaea' with its ethic reference ... disappeared, to be replaced by a new name, 'Syria Palaestina'" (page 108). "The revolt thus left Judaea as a major, and on the surface a highly Romanised, element in the structure of the Empire" (page 107). With the 'rear' at peace, Rome's attention could look East.

In building an Empire, economics played a role. The arc of territory in the Near East was a valuable prize: it contained rich cultivable lands and was crossed by trade routes to and from the Far East and India upon which customs duties could be levied. Its lure could be dangerously seductive, even to a seasoned military commander in chief. Trajan took his army out on a war of conquest in 113CE, reaching as far as Ctsesiphon, the Parthian capital in 116CE. In his wake he created the new provinces of Assyria, Armenia, Mesopotamia. But a general revolt broke out, Assyria was lost and Trajan was forced to return and recognise the Parthian dynasty.

Various emperors engaged in military campaigns to shore up the easternmost frontier, gaining ground here, losing ground there. By 208CE, Roman troops under Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla had marched across the Euphrates into Mesopotamia again and imposed a peace treaty on Persia, "which extended Roman domination across the Tigris" (page 142). (Was Roman policy inspired by Alexander, after all?). Severus Alexander retaliated against the Parthians for invading Mesopotamia (231-233CE). He was followed by Gordian III who fought against Sassanid king, Shapur I, but lost (242-244CE). His successor Philip 'The Arabian' then sued for peace. In 260CE, the Roman Emperor Valerian led his armies against Shapur but he was defeated at Edessa and captured alive. His surviving troops were forced to build a Roman-style palace at Bishapur for their captive Emperor, so that Shapur could demonstrate to all the world his clemency - or maybe just to gloat at his caged animal. Even as late as the end of Constantine's reign in 337CE, the Near East was the "prime area where the long tradition of Roman imperialism was still active" (page 219).

Over the previous three hundred years, Roman diplomatic and military policy had been in parts successful, in others failures. Notes Millar,

For the West, that was a major victory. But it came at a high cost in blood and treasure. "The step-by-step advance of the Roman army", argues Millar, was instrumental in the development of the Near East's social history (page 489). Rome's intrusion into the area disrupted all the former hierarchies of power and forced the Near East's inhabitants to reëvaluate their understanding of these foreigners and their relationships with each other. Echoes of that disruption can still be heard in the region to this day.

So there you have it. Six lessons inspired by the history of the Romans in the Near and Middle East. Of course, history never truly repeats itself, but the lessons compel us to pause to consider our next move in the hope of avoiding making really bad decisions. Yet there is a sobering observation from George Bernard Shaw who wrote,

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