Donald Trump rode into office—twice now—on a wave of promises to upend the Washington consensus, to drain the swamp of its self-serving mandarins and to keep America out of endless wars. His base cheered when he skewered the neoconservative architects of Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that bled our Treasury, and most importantly, many of our sons for little more than bragging rights in Beltway and Tel Aviv salons. Yet here we are, in the early days of his second term, with whispers growing louder from the usual suspects: advisors and hangers-on nudging him toward a strike on Iran, peddling the old lie that it’ll be quick, clean, and simple. History, that stern teacher we keep ignoring, tells us otherwise. Yet the hawks in the Trump administration appear to be anxious to wreck another country, which would join the long, recurring tragedy of U.S.-caused failed countries in the Middle East.
The pitch is familiar, isn’t it? A swift blow—maybe a few airstrikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites or a green light for Israel to do the dirty work—and the mullahs will crumble, the region will stabilize, and we’ll be home by Easter. It’s the same tune the warmongers hummed in 1914, when Europe’s leaders promised their boys would be back from the trenches by Christmas. These are also the same deceptions we heard in 2003, when Iraq was sold as a “cakewalk”—a war that would pay for itself with oil and gratitude. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars later, we’re still witnessing that tragedy.
The U.S. has been either directly bombing or participating in bombing the Houthis on and off since 2015. Why should we believe the war cheerleaders that this time will be more successful?
Iran is not Iraq circa 2003, nor is it some tinpot dictatorship ripe for a Predator-drone makeover. It’s a 3,000-year-old culture with a population of 85 million, rugged as the Zagros Mountains, with a military hardened by decades of sanctions, assassinations, military attacks, cyber attacks, proxy wars, and constant threats from top leaders of Israel and the U.S. to destroy their country. The Islamic Republic has spent years preparing for this very fight—dispersing its assets, fortifying its defenses, and cultivating allies from Hezbollah to the Houthis. A strike wouldn’t be a surgical snip; it’d be kicking a hornet’s nest with no apparent interest in an exit strategy. Yet the war hawk advisers circling Trump—some recycled from the Bush era, others eager to prove their toughness—seem unworried about the chaos they’d unleash. Chaos has been their game for decades.
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