I offer this as a rebuttal to a recent My Turn, “Processing Iran’s Bombing,” to offer an alternative view and allow the reader to come to their own conclusions. The author offers the Iraq war as a positive argument. He cites improvement in the rate of poverty, improved women’s rights and, of course, the elimination of Saddam Hussein as positive outcomes of the Iraq war and by extension, reason enough to embroil the nation in yet another war in Mideast, this time in Iran.
One can argue about the numbers. Iraq’s economy is anything but robust. It is 90% dependent on oil revenues and while there has been an uptick in growth in 2025, that followed a downward trend over the last three years. The war created thousands of orphans, destroyed health and hurt education and industrial infrastructure, damage which has yet to be completely repaired. Perhaps even worse, the war triggered sectarian violence, giving rise to groups such as ISIS. In the last year, sectarian violence has increased with the country beginning to fracture along the same fault lines. We don’t hear much about Iraq now because we choose not to hear about Iraq, and now Iran have pushed it out of our consciousness.
The numbers though, miss the point. The Iraq war was, by any definition, a disaster. The amount of American blood and treasure expended as well as the number of civilian deaths notwithstanding, the war created a power vacuum, the effects of which are still being dealt with today. The war with Iran today may well be a direct result of the Iraq war. The removal of Iraq as a regional power opened the door for Iran to take up the mantle as the region’s dominant power.
In addition, the United States was unable to contain the spread of the war. It spread and mutated, impacting and being impacted by conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Palestine and Isreal. In the 25 years since 9/11, almost a million direct and indirect deaths globally can be attributed to the Iraq war. None of these consequences were foreseen and none were planned for.
The Bush administration was confident of two things: that the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. military, shock and awe, would make short work of the Iraqi army and U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators. They were correct on the first assumption, dead wrong on the second. The tactical plan for the invasion and its execution was impeccable. However, the plan seemed to end with the fall of Saddam. The Bush administration heard what they wanted to hear from Iraqi exiles and never questioned whether they were capable of forming a legitimate and effective government. Worse, there was no plan for the occupation, no plan for keeping the lights on and the economy running. Civil unrest increased and violence erupted requiring the surge of U.S. forces.
As poor as the plan for the Iraq war was, at least there was a plan. The Trump administration appears to have no plan for the current campaign beyond killing Iranian leadership and destroying the Iranian military. It appears, based on comments from the president and secretary of defense that there has been no thought given to what or who may fill the vacuum left by the death of Ali Khamenei. The president appears content to let events unfold as they may. The author, echoing the president, says unforeseen and unintended consequences are inevitable. He hopes that what ultimately emerges is a benign entity. As a former Army chief of staff once said, “hope is not a strategy.” Should we expend more blood and treasure based on a hope and a prayer?
Iran, like Iraq, has numerous groups and sects, each one waiting for their chance to grab power. Cutting off the head without a plan to replace it, to bomb Iran into submission and then stand by and watch to see what happens, is the height of folly and only serves to repeat the mistakes of the last war. There are 96 million Iranians with countless sectarian divides. Shia versus Shia, Shia versus Suni. There are monarchists and secularists, hardliners and moderates, Kurds and Baluchi. The sectarian violence triggered by Trump’s war could make the violence in Iraq seem mild in comparison and coupled with their numerous proxy groups, the war could very well spread throughout the Mideast and beyond. Such a spread will have consequences which will reverberate for years if not decades to come.
Initiative should not be confused with recklessness. It is not leadership to commit a country to a potentially costly and protracted war while ignoring or not considering the consequences. There is a quote, often repeated and just as often ignored: “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” The president has chosen to ignore the lessons of Iraq, and the nation is now in the midst of its third Mideastern war in the last quarter century. The first two did not end well. The administration has given me no confidence that this one will be any different.
Michael Pelchat is a retired pharmacist and current history student. He lives in Webster.