Iran in the Shadow of the Iraq War

The Iran war is very different from the Iraq war. I mark some of the differences in my Washington Post column today.

President George W. Bush was memorably cautioned by Secretary of State Colin Powell regarding Iraq, “You break it, you own it.” This time, the United States is taking no responsibility for rebuilding after the war. Despite deploying several thousand troops, mostly sailors and Marines, to the region, the Trump administration does not appear to be seriously considering a major ground invasion, unlike in 2003.

But I see one similarity in the debate over the wars that ought to worry supporters of the current conflict: They're putting on some of the same blinders that supporters of the 2003 Iraq war did.

The danger is in jumping from “some opponents of the war are wrong about a lot of things” to “nothing the opponents say needs to be considered” to “the war is going great.” That’s the mindset that led conservatives to agree with Vice President Dick Cheney in 2005 when he said the Iraqi insurgency was in its “last throes.” (It wasn’t.) And to agree with Trump, in mid-March, that Iran has been “totally defeated.” (The fact that a two-week ceasefire and peace negotiations soon followed suggests otherwise.)