The Iraq war will always be deeply personal to me. During my deployment I lost friends, was wounded by an IED, and watched a generation of our military live through a war in the Middle East that brought neither peace nor stability. This past memorial day I delivered a campaign speech in Tampa to hundreds of attendees, remembering and celebrating those that gave their last measure of devotion in service to our nation.
The United States officially withdrew its remaining personnel from Iraq this past week. This marks the second time that we’ve exited the country (our first absence lasted just a few short years before forces were redeployed to fight ISIL in 2015). What should have been seen as the closing of a chapter of our military’s history didn’t register with Americans or the national security community. This is because our withdrawal comes as our military is overextended in another war with Iran. It hurts to see our country repeat the same mistakes year after year, administration after administration.
As I noted in my September 11th reflection, 9/11 pierced the veil of America’s invulnerability. We no longer saw ourselves as insulated from war and distant conflict by two oceans. A terrorist attack at the heart of American society demanded a response and our mission to Afghanistan was a just cause to drive out and punish Al Qaeda. Iraq was an entirely different story.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a war of choice. A generous read on the decision-making at the time was that we were preventing a rogue state from acquiring WMDs - our intel was shaky but we were acting on the urgency of keeping devastating weapons out of the hands of a belligerent tyrant. The less-charitable reality was that the decision to invade was in pursuit of a combination of objectives, including the need to punish Saddam by finishing the war that Bush-senior had started. That war triggered decades of regional conflict, including empowering Iran by removing the threat of another Iran-Iraq war. We’ve spent decades attempting to control the fallout from our actions.
The Iran War is another needless, costly war of choice. The Trump administration’s justification for this conflict - that Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon - is even more shaky than the WMD pretext for Iraq. In the case of Iraq, the wounds of 9/11 were fresh, the insecurity real, and the legal basis (an act of Congress providing the basis for U.S. military action) was extant. Iran was not on the cusp of nuclear breakout because Operation Midnight Hammer severely degraded Iran’s nuclear program - even if the exact claims of damage were exaggerated by the Trump administration.
Every US President since at least Nixon has attempted to stabilize the Middle East and failed. Were any lessons learned over the past 20 years on wars of choice? Not only have we failed to define objectives and mission scope, we’ve managed to burn bridges with allies and create a self-induced global energy crisis.
Time will show the final cost of our war in Iran.
Thank you for your clear and objective account of the confusing mess in the Middle East. We are fortunate to have someone as astute as you willing to educate the public.
Honestly the saying is those “who don’t learn from history is doomed to repeat it .” It seems like the low education standards the USA has is coming to roost.