Last week I wrote that Donald Trump didn’t start the current conflict in the Middle East.  He’s just the first American president who believed we could not kick the can down road any longer without posing grave risks to the United States and the world.  I also wrote that wars are inherently unstable and this one is no different because once missiles start flying the forces of restraint & diplomacy are replaced by fear and uncertainty.

So, allow me to ask rhetorically, was war with Iran a good idea?  The short answer is ‘We don’t know yet,’ the long answer is that wars are always second-guessed for two reasons – politics and 20-20 hindsight.

Hindsight has 20-20 Vision

Once an outcome is known, the correct decisions are always obvious.  But wartime leaders operate with incomplete intelligence, conflicting reports, time pressures and political constraints.  After the fact historians and political pundits have the benefit of seeing the entire picture and have information that was not available at the time hostilities began.  For example, the D-Day invasion in June of 1944 looked extremely risky at the time.  And if the weather had been slightly worse or the Germans had reinforced Normandy sooner, historians might today call it reckless boondoggle.

Wars Come With a Cost

Wars produce enormous costs in blood and treasure.  And because the stakes are so high, societies will naturally ask “Was it worth it?”  Even in victory wars are scrutinized because the price paid was so great.

It’s also fact of life that out-of-power political parties always question the decision to go to war.  Meanwhile, historians will re-examine strategies and journalists will seek out and uncover mistakes.  And over time this can create the impression that the war was mismanaged, even if the decisions appeared reasonable at the time.

All wars are chaotic, and no war goes according to plan once the first shots are fired.  Even successful campaigns almost never work out as designed.  There will always be mistaken strategies, missed opportunities, failed operations, and friendly-fire incidents while historians (and opposing political parties) will identify the instances where something could have been done better.

Moral Perspectives

Actions that seemed justified before or during a conflict are likely to be viewed differently as values evolve, e.g., dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bombing campaigns against major cities, and attacks that unintentionally harm civilians, especially children.

And after the war is over, classified documents will be released, memoirs will be written, intelligence records will become public and experts, including those who think they’re experts, reconstruct events in ways participants could not see at the time.

Paradoxes in War

History offers some fascinating perspectives, i.e., some wars that appeared reckless at the time but later turned out to be strategically successful, while others looked initially successful but later proved to be disastrous.

When Ronald Reagan escalated pressure on the Soviet Union in the 1980s the critics said the defense buildup was dangerous, and Reagan’s confrontational rhetoric (“evil empire”) was too harsh.  We heard the strategic missile defense (Star Wars) would destabilize nuclear balance.

But within the decade the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet empire collapsed.

Meanwhile, some wars that appear successful, later turn out to be strategic mistakes, and World War I is the prime example, because the “Great War” didn’t end with the Treaty of Versailles, rather the treaty just created the conditions for World War II.

The reality is that wars are judged on two timelines – short term, i.e., who won the battlefield and long term – did the war achieve its strategic goals?  So, what of the conflict in Iran?  I am not qualified answer that, but as events now indicate, Iran was never going to stop adding to its arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, nor was it ever going to abandon its quest for a nuclear weapon.

The bottom line is that, sooner or later, Iran was likely to join North Korea as another rogue state with a nuclear weapon—one capable of wielding nuclear blackmail against the West while triggering a destabilizing arms race across the Middle East.

Trump may have handed the democrats a midterm victory with his move and perhaps even the presidency in ’28, but many firmly believe he made a courageous decision with the long-term interests of the U.S. and the world in mind.