There is an old saying that “wars are easy to get into, but difficult to get out of”. In the last 75 years we have been involved in five limited engagements, Korea, Viet Nam, First Iraq, Second Iraq and now Iran. Of these, the most successfully prosecuted was the First Iraq war that was run by President Poppa George Bush whose airplane had been shot down in WWII. With has foreign policy background, he clearly defined the mission, provided the resources to get the job done and then did not allow any mission creep to drag us deeper into a protracted war. Even though heavily criticized for not expanding the war, his wisdom has not been recognized through the years.
In Korea after restoring South Korea to the 38th parallel, rather quickly, we tried to win it all and brought China into the war. In Viet Nam we expanded a war with an adversary that said we don’t care how much we suffer or how many of us are killed over however long it takes, we will never quit trying to be an independent nation. In the Second Iraq war we took our eye off Afghanistan because Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld convinced George W. Bush it would be a slam dunk just like when Poppa George did it. After three trillion dollars poured into the sand along with the defeat in Afghanistan, it proved to be a disaster.
Now after cancelling a treaty with Iran that limited its nuclear ambitions, our attack has choked off 20% of the world’s oil supply, raising energy prices and reducing supply. The question is who can endure the most pain, them with their economy wrecked or us who might have to endure much higher gas and diesel prices and inflation. Only time will tell.
