Iranian General Qassem Soleimani does not deserve our tears. Those belong to the thousands of American soldiers and contractors who have been killed in the last two decades of pointless wars across the Middle East — and to the thousands more who will die if Washington D.C. pushes our nation into a disastrous war with Iran.
When America was attacked on 9/11, Americans shipped off to Afghanistan with a clear mission: to bring to justice Osama Bin Laden and all those who conspired to murder three thousand innocent Americans. Today, thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of our soldiers, Bin Laden is dead and every co-conspirator rots in the ground or a prison cell.
That mission has been accomplished, so why are our American soldiers still fighting and dying in the Middle East eighteen years later? Why are 22 veterans committing suicide every day? Why are so many children of military families growing up without their fathers or mothers?
For Washington politicians, who rarely send their own sons and daughters to war, the pursuit of justice gave way to the pursuit of empire. Beginning in 2003 and ever since, our soldiers have been cast off into poorly planned regime-change wars in nations that never attacked us. When dictators fall, our soldiers are left behind to clean up the mess with no clear mission to accomplish. The longest wars in American history across multiple nations — Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya — each one has become an unmitigated disaster.
Regime change wars in Libya and Syria resulted in the rise of the Islamic State, the emergence of open-air slave markets where human beings are bought and sold, and the murder of our ambassador and marines in Benghazi.
The toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 destabilized Iraq and handed power in the country over to Iran. Our continued occupation and bombing campaigns have stoked resentments so strong that Iraqi Parliament just voted to expel US troops from the county.
The war in Afghanistan now meanders toward a third decade, and the recent public release of the Afghanistan Papers reveals that our government has lied to the American public for eighteen years to keep that war going, even as our top military leaders don’t understand the mission or even what victory looks like.
Now, the same Washington D.C. elites who promised those wars would be “cakewalks” want a new regime-change war in Iran. They tell us it will be “easy.” I don’t believe them. Our soldiers have paid the price these last eighteen years and we owe them better than to be fooled again.
“No one in Washington is in the mood for big-picture questions right now,” says conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Questions like: Is Iran really the greatest threat we face? And who’s actually benefiting from this? And why are we continuing to ignore the decline of our country in favor of jumping into another pointless quagmire, from which there’s no obvious exit?”
We are told that Iran is a threat, but to whom? It lacks air power capable of threatening America. Despite being an oil rich nation, Iran cannot even produce enough gasoline to support its own population. The only threat Iran poses is to our permanent military presence in nations where we really should not be anyway. In short, are we really ready to start another bloody, costly war for control of Iraq? We should instead pause and learn from the mistakes of the past.
Throughout his term, President Trump has demonstrated excellent foreign policy instincts — certainly better than the other two presidents who served in this century. He worked to open up historic peace talks between North and South Korea. He ended Obama-era programs arming the allies of ISIS. A few months ago, he showed courage to defy the Washington elite consensus urging him to bomb Iran.
Coming into office, Trump inherited a broken situation in the Middle East that gets worse everyday. Foreign policy is a long game. He did not create this disaster, but he has the power to end it.
Trump was elected on the promise to bring our troops home and end these endless wars of nation-building. There is no better time to follow through on this promise than right now. Rather than beginning a war with Iran to defend a permanent military occupation that Americans oppose, let’s end the occupation, bring our troops home and put America first.
State Sen. Eric Brakey, a Republican, is a candidate for Congress in Maine’s second congressional district.
