Americans are not pacifists by instinct, and many still believe force has a place. But they also remember what Washington too often forgets: wars advertised as narrow and temporary have a habit of growing teeth. That memory matters now. Polling suggests there is no broad public enthusiasm for the U.S. strikes on Iran. Even among Donald Trump’s own supporters, backing for air power often comes with a clear red line against another open-ended war. The mood is not surrender. It is exhaustion—and, beneath that, suspicion that the country has been pulled into something far larger than it was promised.

Another war with Iran will not be paid for in speeches. It will be paid for in emergency appropriations, higher deficits, market nerves, and the slow transfer of cost to American households. Washington can wrap that in the language of deterrence, but taxpayers know the pattern by now. Working families already stretched by housing, healthcare, and food prices are being asked, once again, to finance a conflict whose objectives seem to shift by the day. It is not cynical to ask who this war is really for. It is responsible........

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