Twenty-one years ago, I was a Marine infantryman in Anbar province, western Iraq. My job was to go town to town, search houses, and try to stop insurgents before they stopped us. Every day, someone was trying to kill us — improvised explosive devices buried in the roads, mortars in the middle of the night, rockets fired from rooftops. Even two years into the war, there was no clear direction, no definition of victory, and no real plan for what came next.
I lost my best friend there. I watched young men die for a mission that was never clearly justified to the American people. I came home with PTSD that I still live with every day.
That war lasted nearly nine years, cost $3 trillion, destabilized the Middle East, stole more than 4,000 American lives, and created a generation of veterans who will never be the same.
I thought the politicians who sent us to Iraq learned something. But watching what is happening now with Iran feels like déjà vu.
A War With No Clear Purpose
Over the past month, we’ve heard multiple, shifting, and contradictory reasons for why military intervention in Iran was supposedly necessary:
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio said we had to strike because Israel was about to attack — which makes no sense. We’re the most powerful country in the world. We decide when we go to war, not Israel.
- Vice President JD Vance said it was about taking out their nuclear program — a program the administration supposedly neutralized last June, and one that Trump himself weakened by tearing up the 2015 nuclear deal in the first place.
- Trump now says this is about punishing the Iranian regime for violence against its own people. But if he suddenly cares about human rights in Iran, bombing the country is the worst possible way to help.
When you ask Trump’s closest advisors why we’re going to war, you get five different answers. It’s clear they don’t even know what the actual goal is.
No Plan for What Comes Next
On the first day of the war, the United States killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Removing a brutal dictator is a good thing. But if that was the objective, why wasn’t there a strategy to ensure whoever took his place would be someone we could work with? How were they planning to prevent hardliners from taking power?
Instead, Iran has appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, the former leader’s son — seen as even more hardline than his father. Instead of helping the Iranian people, we’ve strengthened the regime that oppresses them.
Why? Because the Trump administration had no plan then, and it still has no plan now.
The Costs Are Already Adding Up
Thirteen American servicemembers have already been killed. Trump has deployed 2,500 more Marines to the Middle East, and the White House is even talking about a military draft.
The war has driven oil prices up nearly 50 percent. Trump’s solution? Ease sanctions on Russia so they can sell more oil — even as U.S. officials confirm Russia is providing intelligence to Iran to help target American servicemembers. We started a war with Iran, and we’re now indirectly helping them shoot us.
This war is costing over $1 billion a day. Imagine what that money could do for our schools, housing, and families. Everywhere I go, I meet people crushed by the cost of living — struggling to pay for groceries and bills. Trump claims to be “America First,” but when it comes to the problems families actually care about, Americans are clearly last.
A Veteran’s Plea
I’m Team America too. That means asking before sending our troops into harm’s way: How is this actually in our country’s best interest? Right now, I don’t see how it is.
We could have helped the Iranian people in other ways. The United States negotiates with bad actors all the time without going to war. Recognizing Iran as a threat does not require bombing their country and putting our troops at risk without a clear strategy, defined objectives, or an exit plan.
I know from lived experience that when wars are launched without a plan, the people who pay are never the politicians who started them. It’s the American people. It’s the kids from working-class neighborhoods who enlisted.
The legacy of the Iraq war lives on in every veteran. We cannot repeat its mistakes.
Source: War on the Rocks
