The decision to invade Iran was a horrendous mistake, and it was never about nuclear weapons. Many Americans bought that fake narrative, though. Many are very gullible. Afghanistan became a byword for ill-considered western interventionism and nation-building. It was the archetypal “forever war”, a phrase first coined during Vietnam. If this cautionary tale had any lasting value, it was as a deterrent to politicians and generals tempted to rashly embark on open-ended conflicts without just cause, defined, achievable aims, and an exit strategy. Dismayingly, the forever war lesson had to be learned all over again in Iraq, which the US and UK invaded in 2003 and departed, having caused huge harm for scant benefit, in 2011. “Never again!” was the passionate cry at the time and since. And yet, it seems, the same disastrous pattern is now repeating after Donald Trump’s incomprehensibly foolish decision to attack Iran. A war he termed a “little excursion” is entering its sixth month and has been escalating rapidly. It, too, has a forever feel. That this nightmare is happening again defies all reason. How can it be? Immediate causes of the war aside, answers may be found in persistent US exaggerations and misconceptions about the level and extent of external threats, mixed up with political dishonesty, national hubris, naivety and misplaced idealism. If the Afghan war was prosecuted on the basis of a false assumption, so much more so was the invasion of oil-rich Iraq. George W Bush’s claim in 2002 that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed stockpiles of readily usable chemical and biological weapons and was seeking a nuclear bomb proved untrue. Untrue, too, was the claim from the then vice-president, Dick Cheney, that Iraq “aids and protects” al-Qaida. The subsequent occupation and insurgency became part of an even larger forever war – Bush’s “global war on terror”. According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, an estimated 940,000 people were killed in direct post-9/11 violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Pakistan between 2001 and 2023. Up to 3.8 million died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones. What else makes American politicians risk costly entanglements in foreign wars they can’t control and usually lose? Insecurity – meaning fear – is a common denominator. Like Bush before him, Trump and Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, have greatly and knowingly exaggerated the immediacy and existential nature of the Iranian threat. Like Iraq in 2003, Iran possesses no nuclear weapons and there is zero firm evidence it is trying, or has recently tried, to acquire them. There is a recurring paradox here: it’s the spectacle of the world’s most powerful country once again fearfully tilting at shadows. In Trump’s case, ego is also a factor. It seems he would rather kill thousands more civilians, risk committing war crimes, set the Middle East ablaze and destroy Republicans’ electoral chances than admit he was wrong over Iran. Such extreme behaviour illuminates another pernicious aspect of the forever war phenomenon. Its utter pointlessness is fundamentally immoral. In its sheer un-reason, it offends against the laws of God and man. War without end is the death of hope. As he frantically twists and turns over Iran, it’s plain that Trump perceives the bottomless pit on the edge of which, thanks to him, the US totters – and has no idea how to avoid it. This abysmal Iranian catastrophe is already defining Trump’s presidency. The bloody stain, the blame and the shame, if not the war, will last forever. Donald is a reckless and dumb street trash goon. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/02/donald-trump-iran-afghanistan-25-years-same-mistakes?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
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