Bombing Iran’s nuclear sites has no upside for American security interests. Have we learned nothing about the risks of endless war?
by Brandan Buck
The Daily Economy
On Capitol Hill, where memories are short, concern about open-ended military conflicts — or as one might call them, war — is now considered “hysteria.” Such was the case when Senator Tom Cotton, during hearings on the recent nomination of US Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Caine, mocked concerns about the prospect of US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program as “hysteria” while dismissively referring to concepts such as endless war or forever war in scare quotes. The Senator from Arkansas further justified the idea by invoking the Tanker War as a historical analogy; an example of a “forceful but discriminant application of military power” that led “to peace.”
Like other historical comparisons used to justify Washington’s current or prospective war, this one too falls short, failing to account for the strategic and geopolitical differences between the present and a comparatively limited naval campaign of the late 1980s.