Only five years after the Afghanistan War was abandoned and victory handed to the enemy, America is at war again. This time we’re fighting Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead. Good riddance. This old soldier is no pacifist. But after seeing my war in Afghanistan fall so horrifically into the long list of American losses, I had been encouraged by the popularity of peace. For a while, the conservative comment-o-sphere boasted about President Donald Trump’s commitment to no new wars. Now those same people are excited about the Iran war. They argue, “This war’s different.” Except it isn’t. The Iran war is the latest chapter in a very old story.

Trump and many pundits tell us that the Iran war had to be fought right now, or else Iran would perpetrate devastating attacks, possibly with nuclear weapons. We’ve heard versions of this from Lyndon Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin address to George W. Bush’s 20 September 2001 ultimatum to the Taliban, and his WMD alarmism before Afghanistan and Iraq. America’s many wars always begin with righteous urgency.

Some claim the........

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