So far, the public narrative put forth by the Trump administration surrounding this new Iranian conflict has been nigh-unintelligible gibberish. Trump says he forced Israel’s hand, and Marco Rubio says later that the administration did not know about the Israeli action. We call for the Iranians to take their country, yet we keep a list of favorable leadership candidates, most of whom we also killed.
In it all, one administration official’s public performance has been notably vigorous: Secretary of War for the “peace” administration, Pete Hegseth. As other officials have wavered on the specific details of the operation, he has remained firm: this war isn’t like America’s other bad wars. This is a good operation, one with clear goals, laser-focused on taking out recently developed Iranian missile capabilities.
The point he mainly tried to hammer home was that this war “wasn’t endless,” unlike Iraq.
Once again, the most shocking thing about this shambolic operation is just how little effort is put into the facade. Give Dubya and Cheney this: they cooked up a story and stuck with it.
They never promised a timeline. As long as it would take to end terrorism, they said.
What do you do with an administration that doesn’t even have the boldness to lie confidently? One minute it’s a four-week timeline, then that becomes a “fake news gotcha question.”
It’s like the excuses were quickly scribbled onto a napkin, and then that napkin got rained on before the press conference.
It’s okay though because this one’s not “endless.”
They couldn’t even be bothered to come up with a new script. We’re off to war for the exact same reason as last time: they totally have nukes, trust us, guys.
Never mind the fact that we told you months ago that their nuclear capabilities were effectively the same as Fred Flintstone’s. Ignore all that. We’re just going to be in and out in a couple of weeks, okay?
What do we meaningfully hope to accomplish with this action?
Hegseth said we accomplished regime change. That hasn’t even been determined yet, as the institutions of the Iranian state remain functional and broadly in control of the nation’s sovereignty.
Say that administration collapses in the coming weeks or months, a very likely possibility at this point. What then? The administration has stated its opposition to nation-building and avoided even stating that the goal of this war was regime change, so who collects the rubble of Iran once the bombs cease falling?
Ah, yes, the heir to the throne, son of the old Shah. Sound geopolitics. Everyone knows once American forces pulled out of Libya after Gaddafi was killed that the Senussis peacefully returned to power and led the country to many years of stability and peace.
Well, I wish that were the case. Instead, we live in the brutal reality where if you blow up a state with no plan or intention of direction, you get chaos and civil war.
Some kind of liberation that is. I’m all for helping the Iranian people take back their nation. Work with aid groups, coordinate with resistance groups for operations, do something to push a movement from the ground up that can create a viable Iranian state that can effectively assert sovereignty over the country.
There we go again with that pesky nation-building. I suppose none of that flowery stuff is our job. Nope, just aim where Israel points and fire.
The cavalier attitude towards it all is what is really most disgusting.
But hey, this war isn’t “endless,” so that makes it alright.
Six American troops have died in this conflict as of Wednesday. Capt. Cody A. Khork, Sgt. First Class Noah L. Tietjens, Sgt. First Class Nicole M. Amor and Spc. Declan J. Coady have been identified so far, while the other two remain unidentified as of writing.
Along with them, almost 800 people just like you, people who woke up, went to work, shared a drink with a spouse, told a story to their child, were removed from this planet. You will never know their names, and the administration and the media cycle will do everything they can to ensure they are simply compressed into cold, black digits in a Wikipedia infobox.
Hundreds more will die as well. We’ve been told as much.
How high must the blood pool and the bodies pile? How many schoolgirls roasted alive in fiery graves? Look into the eyes of their mothers and tell them that this war isn’t “endless.”
Gordon Crawford is a 20-year-old political science major from Gonzales, La.
