\n<\/p>\n
Wars have been<\/span> distinctly out of fashion as of late, especially since the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan<\/a>. Whether those quagmires are to be blamed on \u201cdumb, politically correct wars<\/a>\u201d in the eyes of War Secretary Pete Hegseth or not, the idea of putting boots on the ground, doing regime change, occupying a country, and putting American lives in danger is political suicide. <\/p>\n By now, President Donald Trump isn\u2019t shying away from calling the war he launched against Iran a \u201cwar\u201d as he seeks the trappings of what a powerful president is meant to be doing. But Trump was more obfuscating in his speech<\/a> to the nation announcing the beginning of the conflict, instead using the phrase George W. Bush used in his infamous 2003 \u201cMission Accomplished\u201d speech, saying the U.S. had launched \u201cmajor combat operations\u201d against Iran, before obliquely referring to it later on as a \u201cwar\u201d to prepare the viewers at home for \u201ccourageous American heroes\u201d being killed in the fighting to come.<\/p>\n Trump has since gleefully argued<\/a> that \u201cwars can be fought \u2018forever\u2019\u201d to those worried about America running low on munitions to use against Iran. When asked whether Americans should be concerned about retaliatory strikes on the homeland, Trump responded<\/a>, \u201cI guess,\u201d and added, \u201cWhen you go to war, some people will die.\u201d<\/p>\n After American stealth bombers struck<\/a> Iranian nuclear facilities last June, Vice President JD Vance claimed the United States was not at war with Iran, or even Iran\u2019s government, but only with \u201cIran\u2019s nuclear program<\/a>.\u201d Absent the ability to split such fine hairs, Republicans have by and large stuck to calling the war a \u201cdecisive action<\/a>,\u201d an \u201cextraordinary mission<\/a>,\u201d or an \u201cintervention<\/a>\u201d \u2014 but have faltered<\/a> under basic scrutiny when asked what those phrases mean in an effort not to trip wires with the American people, a majority of whom do not support the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some have been slightly more agile, with House Speaker Mike Johnson insisting<\/a> Operation Epic Fury is just that, an \u201coperation\u201d that is \u201climited in scope, limited in objective.\u201d Some have taken the line that Iran has in fact been the one waging the forever war, against the United States, with the House Republican Foreign Affairs Committee publishing<\/a> an image boasting that \u201cPresident Trump is ending the forever war that Iran has waged against America for the last 47 years.\u201d Others have simply tripped over themselves, with Sen. Markwayne Mullin declaring<\/a> \u201cThis is war,\u201d before correcting himself after being pressed by a journalist, saying \u201cThey\u2019ve called it war\u201d and \u201cWe haven\u2019t declared war,\u201d and that him saying it was a war \u201cwas a misspoke.\u201d Mullin has since been nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n Strangely, though, this allergy has also been exhibited by many of the war\u2019s ostensible critics, though these lines rarely go much further. Certain Democratic members of Congress, like Sen. John Fetterman<\/a>, D-Pa., and Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, have outright supported the war, borrowing language from the Republicans \u2014 the latter called it a \u201cmilitary intervention<\/a>\u201d \u2014 and saying targeting \u201cmissile systems and core infrastructure\u201d apparently does not count as a war.<\/p>\n Others attempted some sort of bizarre middle ground, with Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, warning the \u201chostilities<\/a>\u201d against Iran were \u201cnot an illegal war \u2014 <\/em>but could become one.\u201d Even those straightforwardly against the war have made bizarre missteps, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., still borrowing Trump\u2019s preferred framing in the headline<\/a> of her statement condemning the war, calling it \u201ccombat operations\u201d against Iran.<\/p>\n The root of this hesitation by both Republicans and Democrats stems from the memory of Iraq and Afghanistan<\/a>, and how estimates of operations stretched from weeks and months to years and years, in which thousands of American soldiers died and hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed<\/a>. Already the estimated duration of the war with Iran has stretched from four weeks<\/a> to six to even potentially eight<\/a>, according to Hegseth.<\/p>\n Barack Obama understood Americans\u2019 fears about reentering open-ended conflicts, choosing instead to greatly expand the drone program<\/a> that has informed how this war is now being executed. It also led him to describe his military interventions against the Islamic State as being explicitly nothing like Bush\u2019s open-ended wars, where \u201cground troops\u201d for combat purposes would not be returning to Iraq after the much-heralded withdrawal. Of the thousands of U.S. troops Obama ended up sending to Iraq, 2,500 still remain, with the Trump administration rejecting<\/a> votes in the Iraqi Parliament that declared the U.S. military must withdraw, threatening to seize<\/a> 90 percent of Iraq\u2019s national budget (in oil revenues held at the Federal Reserve) if such measures were taken, and again threatening the country with similar punishment<\/a> if it includes anti-American parties in its next government.<\/p>\n The war against Iran is being talked about in similar terms, of an operation that will involve no ground troops, will involve no \u201cnation-building quagmires<\/a>,\u201d and in the words of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., will be a \u201cconflict that should be very short and sweet<\/a>.\u201d As Iran proves it is not willing to immediately capitulate, reports have emerged of preparations being made for potentially months of bombardment. Ground troops, once off the table, were almost immediately put back on the table. Trump at one point saw an off-ramp within only a few days, and now demands Iran\u2019s \u201cunconditional surrender,\u201d with the White House as the decider of Iran\u2019s next leader after their assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His son Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader of Iran as elected by the Assembly of Experts, is apparently \u201cunacceptable<\/a>,\u201d according to Trump.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In another echo of recent history, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld<\/a> used similar language about Iraq. He insisted troops were not bogged down in a \u201cquagmire<\/a>\u201d like Vietnam and said Saddam Hussein should only be discussing \u201cunconditional surrender<\/a>\u201d with the United States, with no other type of deal being acceptable. Rumsfeld, however, said the latter at the beginning of April 2003, days after the war against Iraq was launched, where American troops were rapidly advancing toward Baghdad.<\/p>\n Trump is making these pronouncements as his allies conversely insist that this not-at-all-a-war will be brief, targeted, precise, and still sink the \u201cmothership of terrorism<\/a>,\u201d as Sen. Lindsey Graham has put it. Trump has signaled he wants to \u201cgo in and clean out everything<\/a>,\u201d to wipe out Iran\u2019s leadership structure, and install a new leader to his liking. The only way this was possible in Iraq was after the U.S. invaded with hundreds of thousands of ground troops and built a new administration from the ground up with an American viceroy, himself on the ground in Baghdad in a militarily-secured compound, constantly battling with the populace.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n