General Dan Caine and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth finished a joint press conference this morning. Hegseth stated that the goal of the military operation against Iran is “not regime change,” that America’s objectives in this war are clear, and insisted that this administration will avoid getting pulled into a drawn-out conflict. The Secretary of Defense is misleading the American people.
First, it is unclear why the United States struck Iran in the first place. The US was not in imminent danger. Iran cannot strike the United States, as it possesses no intercontinental ballistic missiles. There remains little evidence that Iran was close to a nuclear weapon. If Iran was unwilling to negotiate a nuclear treaty, which the first Trump administration wrecked, taking out their leadership apparatus is not the way to get a “peace” deal.
If anything, Americans are now in more danger from this war than they were before.
Second, the notion that this administration will conduct, frankly, regime change wars better and more efficiently than past administrations is hubris of the highest order. Mr. Secretary, what administration has wanted a drawn-out war in the Middle East? Nations, especially the United States, want quick and decisive results in war. It saves munitions, money, and most importantly, lives. The Johnson administration initially sought to avoid ground troops in Vietnam. The George W. Bush administration also did not want to nation-build in Iraq, having heavily criticized the Clinton administration for doing so in Bosnia and Kosovo.
And if this operation is not about regime change, why did the United States and Israeli militaries kill Iran’s head of state and scores of their leadership apparatus? If, say, China or Russia killed our president and executive officials, I think Americans would rightly see this as regime change. Obviously, Ali Khamenei was a bad man. A three-year-old can make this sort of argument. There are a lot of bad people in this world, but this doesn’t mean that the United States can or should attack everywhere and kill all of them. The consequences, even the unintended ones, must be thought through before conducting military operations. And in this, the administration has failed.
Despite Secretary Hegseth’s insistence, America’s objectives in this war remain unclear. It is easier to start wars than it is to stop them. Without tangible and achievable objectives, there can be no exit strategy. The longer a nation is involved in a war and the more its military escalates, the faster its windows of opportunity for exiting close. Iran has and will continue to strike back, leading to further unknown consequences.
Already, four Americans have been killed. Should more die and should violence escalate in the region, which it already has, the Trump administration will feel a need to respond in kind. This escalation would then put the ball back in Iran’s court, where they would likely escalate given the existential crisis to Tehran’s government, and on and on they go. In other words, these are all “unknown unknowns.”
There are so many ways that this military operation can go wrong and so few ways it can go right. Who will take over Iran if the regime should fall? If Iran’s ballistic missiles and supposed nuclear capabilities are truly a threat to the United States, how can the Trump administration be sure that both are incapacitated without sending in ground troops? These basic questions remain unanswered.
The Secretary of Defense should stop manipulating the American people by saying this operation is not regime change and it is “common sense.” Yours and the president’s job is to think through the consequences of your actions, especially in foreign and military policy. Both have failed in this duty.
