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Posted on 03/14/2026 1:46:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
America should not play global judge, jury, and executioner. This role is bad for us. It harms our economy and rots our national character. Moreover, foreign wars distract from much more important goals here at home.
Trump’s decision to pursue the Iran war, for instance, distracts from his much more important domestic policy goals on immigration, inflation, and dismantling leftist-controlled institutions.
The political capital required to wage this war of choice is simply too high. The downside risks of being sucked into a months- or even years-long war are too great.
The threat to the global economy from a sustained closure of the Strait of Hormuz is real and painful. Nothing will undo Trump’s domestic agenda like sustained economic pain for Americans in a war they did not vote for and never expressed interest in having.
This point about consent is critical. Trump ran on immigration, inflation, and opposition to woke insanity. He presented himself as a law-and-order candidate who would reverse the baleful effects of the Biden years.
While Trump talked tough about Iran, he did not pitch the war he is waging now to the voters. Had he run on waging another Middle Eastern war, it would have been a huge political liability. In fact, President Trump in 2024 ran as a “peace” candidate who would prevent WWIII and bring stability. Vice President JD Vance endorsed Trump for president in 2024 due to his restrained foreign policy views.
In a piece titled ”Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars” for the Wall Street Journal, Vance wrote:
In Mr. Trump’s four years in office, he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration. Not starting wars is perhaps a low bar, but that’s a reflection of the hawkishness of Mr. Trump’s predecessors and the foreign-policy establishment they slavishly followed.
Vance was right when he wrote these words. One of President Trump’s greatest accomplishments had been his refusal to start new wars. He was willing to launch the occasional air strike and rattle the saber, but he refused to get bogged down in new conflicts.
Bombing Iran has changed this legacy decisively. President Trump has launched a war of choice in the Middle East. We will feel the consequences for a long time.
Trump’s justifications for the war are many and varied. We are told that Iran’s nuclear program is an existential threat to the world, that Trump is actually ending a 47-year-long war by attacking Iran now, that the Iranian regime is evil because it kills its own people, and that Iran is a regional sponsor of terror that must be stopped.
These arguments presume that the United States must serve as the world’s policeman, that we have a right to tell other sovereign nations how to conduct their national defense and internal politics, and that we must be involved in every regional conflict on earth for the sake of global peace.
These arguments are old. They have been made by our political leaders since at least the Spanish-American War. The result has not been peace and prosperity but an unending series of wars and crises. None of this has been in our interest.
In our present circumstances, these arguments simply do not hold water. Iran acquiring nuclear weapons will not be a crisis. North Korea, Communist China, and the USSR all have (or had) nuclear weapons. None were willing to use them despite being ideological states opposed to the West and to America.
The threat of mutually assured destruction serves as a very serious check on atomic war. Nuclear weapons are primarily defensive, no matter what rhetoric and saber-rattling the Iranians engage in. Nuclear weapons are a force for peace. Their very destructive power makes the use of these weapons very unlikely.
Moreover, the idea that America has been at war with Iran for 47 years is wrong. The Iranian revolution in 1979 was obviously aimed at America, but why? It would be more honest to say the Iran war is 73 years old, since the United States overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 in order to strengthen our puppet, the Shah. We did this not because Iran threatened the United States but because its relations with Britain over oil had soured.
Hysterical fears over a communist takeover (unlikely, considering widespread Iranian anger at the Soviets for the 1941 invasion) helped justify this foolish intervention.
The conflict and intrigue between our two countries goes back a long way, but it could have easily been solved by honest and open dialogue any time over the last half-century.
Yes, there have been ugly incidents between both countries that complicate matters. In 1983, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard provided explosives and training to Hezbollah militants who launched a suicide attack on 240 American Marines in Lebanon. In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down IR655, an Iranian civilian airliner flying over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people on board.
In both cases, these killings happened in the Middle East. If the United States had not decided to get involved in peacekeeping missions in both Lebanon and the Gulf, these incidents would not have happened. Those Marines and Iranian civilians would be alive. The causes of conflict provoked by these incidents would not have happened. Foreign policy restraint is a force for peace.
A foreign policy oriented toward national defense and protecting the American homeland would have prevented the very killings that make up the history of antagonism between our two nations. Our global policeman foreign policy is the source of these problems.
There is a more powerful argument, of course, for American involvement in the Persian Gulf during the Iran–Iraq War, when Iraq decided to sink Iranian tankers in the Gulf. Freedom of trade and freedom of navigation are plausible goals for the American government to help uphold.
It is worth mentioning, however, that the United States sided with Iraq during the 1980s conflict with Iran. If we really had wanted to oppose attacks on international shipping, we would have sided with Iran against Iraqi aggression rather than doing the opposite.
The American government, for instance, cut off weapons supplies to Iran while giving Iraq a $2.5 billion line of credit to purchase agricultural goods (thereby freeing up other monies for the purchase of weapons from China and elsewhere).
Iran’s attacks on American troops during the Iraq War were similarly the result of American policy decisions. It was the United States’ decision to go to war in Iraq that exposed American troops to the extremely dangerous explosively formed penetrators in IEDs manufactured by Iran and used by Iraqi militias. Had we not engaged in a foolish war of choice with Saddam Hussein, these Americans would not have been killed.
The United States has been meddling in the Middle East for too long. It has been our government’s choice to engage in war after war and intervention after intervention, and that is the reason that is the source of the antagonism between Iran and the United States now.
President Trump, therefore, should immediately bring the war with Iran to an end before more Americans are killed. He should treat the new Iranian regime as a legitimate sovereign power. He should seek peace and the removal of the American presence in the region. This hothouse of ethnic conflict, violence, and regional instability has not been bettered by our government’s presence.
For instance, the Strait of Hormuz, so crucial for global oil flows, would be open right now if our surprise attack on Iran had not provoked the Iranians into blockading it.
This is a war and crisis of our government’s own making. Peace could have easily been achieved through a willingness by the Americans to treat Iran with the equality and respect due from one sovereign to another. Peace and trade, not war and intervention, should characterize our relationship to the Middle East as a whole.
Preserving freedom of navigation and trade is a plausible goal for the American government and navy. The best way to accomplish this goal, however, is to stop giving cause for offense abroad. When our citizens’ trade is genuinely attacked, our response to piracy and blockades should be punitive expeditions and diplomacy.
I want President Trump to succeed. I want him to have a strong economy so that he can pursue his law and order agenda here at home. Nothing will detract from his goals like a foreign war. I pray, therefore, that this war comes to a swift end and results in a durable, respectful peace.
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It is not a war
It is a special military operation
Too long, ba, ba, ba
Running out of stuff to post?
RE: It is a special military operation
Yeah just like Russia’s military operation in Ukraine 4 years ago. An operation that has killed and maimed 1.5 million.
Yes, it does appear to be exactly that.
nothing wrong being the world police than china or russia
Smacking down muslims anywhere is a good thing.
Here in the USA is a good start.
American isn't Russia, comrade. But I like the 1.5 million dead IRGC figure. I'm thinking it will be around 200,000 of them dead by the end of the war. Will need another couple weeks for that.
That bull left the barn ages ago. Our national character is full of rot,
horn to hoof. Taking down mullahs is an improvement.
I’m good with the strikes, even if it’s only payback for Marines killed in Beruit bombing.
But we’re doing much more than that
We’re cleaning up a terrorist regime that’s been at war with us for 47 years.
Time’s Up, Mullahs!!!!!
Think Bosnia. It was a 30 day bombing campaign. It was effective.
Likely the same institutions that would not have the US be the world superpower acting as the world's policeman.
Oh, another posts from the Chicom shill.
If you don’t post pop culture garbage you post disingenuous crap like this that extols your bosses views.
Watch and pray for Virginia. Democrats went too far too fast. Turnout has been breaking records in the rural counties against gerrymandering. Of course red Spamburger lied and said she was a moderate. The backlash is in full swing.
I’m against any military action that we don’t win.
RE: Running out of stuff to post?
I post everyday. As long as there’s stuff worth posting, I don’t run out.
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