Seventeen years ago, the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. That disastrous decision tied the U.S. down in a conflict that has cost us nearly 4,500 lives and cost taxpayers a whopping $2 trillion. Most leaders in the foreign policy community now reluctantly recognize that the invasion of Iraq did not make us any safer. Hopes of turning the country into a liberal democracy to serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East were, in retrospect, delusional.
But some key policymakers have apparently failed to learn the lessons of the Iraq War and are pushing to start another major war in the Middle East. According to the New York Times, certain government officials have engaged in an effort to escalate military action against Iran significantly. One proposal supposedly involves sinking Iranian warships, an act of war that could lead to a major conflict.
This push for escalation is occurring in the context of opposition from the Department of Defense and President Trump’s own recent criticisms of the trillions of dollars we have wasted in the Middle East on endless war.
Considering the enormous pressures placed on our military, our economy, and the federal budget by decades of mismanagement and overspending (only made worse by the coronavirus crisis), the last thing the U.S. needs right now is another bloody and expensive war in the Middle East. We should instead move to end our military presence in Iraq, accelerate the withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan, and begin a larger reassessment of our military posture in the Middle East to focus on more pressing foreign and domestic priorities.
But even if the U.S. wasn’t facing an unprecedented crisis, a new war with Iran would not be in our national interest.
Iran is indeed an oppressive Shiite theocracy that is undoubtedly a bad actor in the Middle East. But Iran is also a weak country with limited economic and military strength, now hobbled by a major coronavirus outbreak within its borders. It is also surrounded by adversarial nations with much stronger militaries and economies.
The current justification being used to push for military action is that Iranian-backed militias are responsible for a recent spate of deadly attacks against American troops and our coalition partners in Iraq. But this argument falls short because there is no clear national security need for our troops to be in Iraq any longer.
The U.S. has destroyed the Islamic State’s physical caliphate, which was the stated goal of sending a large number of troops back to Iraq in 2014. The Iraqi Parliament has called for our withdrawal while the training of the increasingly Iranian-aligned Iraqi security forces has been halted.
As a result, the main mission of U.S. forces in Iraq is securing the isolated installations they occupy. Starting a war with Iran to defend bases that no longer serve any real military purpose would be foolish and counterproductive.
Instead of escalating military action against Iran and its proxies, Trump should withdraw all our troops from Iraq and end our involvement in a war that never should have been started in the first place. This move would be supported by two-thirds of people in the U.S. and many Iraq War veterans, the majority of whom no longer feel the war was worth fighting.
Removing U.S. troops from isolated bases in Iraq prevents them from being attacked by forces friendly to Iran. Eliminating our ground presence would in no way prevent us from using air and naval power to strike Iran or its proxies, should they pose an imminent major threat to American interests or safety.
Trump has wisely resisted intense pressure from many in the Washington foreign policy establishment to start another major war in the Middle East — something his two immediate predecessors failed to do. The president should continue to trust his instincts and follow through on his promise to end our involvement in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Disentangling ourselves from these conflicts will allow us to better meet the immense challenges facing our country in the months and years ahead.
Dan Caldwell (@dandcaldwell) is a senior adviser to Concerned Veterans for America and a veteran of the Iraq War.
