Is the U.S. Repeating the Mistakes That Led to Forever Wars? | The Iran conflict is likely to be far shorter than the war in Iraq, but experts say the U.S. is running into some of the same pitfalls

"The Iran conflict is likely to be..." What a ridiculous thing to claim. The reasoning behind this conflict is unclear, the goals are unclear, and the administration keeps making conflicting statements and lying about it. How the f*** can they make an accurate guess about how long it's gonna last? They can't.

What? No consideration to the catastrophic economic and humanitarian damage that has now been done to the GCC and most world countries? Iran has fought an asymmetric battle and it is...not losing. Every day since the first wave of US attacks they have begun to launch more and more missiles and drones. They aren't going to fire everything they have left in desperation. No. They'll be firing a few here and there over the next few weeks or months. That's all they need to do to exert control over the straight. Meanwhile, starvation and drought loom over the GCC. Catastrophic recession and fuel shortages loom over the rest of the world. Iran's war is going to be Trumps nail in the coffin for the US' global reputation. He'll be blamed for all the maladies his war has now caused (including retaliatory strikes from Iran), and he will deserve it. Generations of people all over the GCC will now be radicalized against the US, and as a bonus, all the US former allies will hate their guts. Is this what winning looks like? What f****** idiots.

God, I hate the sniveling fawning headlines.

Epstein war :)

When War is profitable, forever war is forever profitable. There are no mistakes.

Electing Republicans has always been a mistake, so yes. Always kills our economy, gets us into wars, protects pedophiles, tax breaks for the rich, and does nothing for the American people except make our lives harder.

They’re saying this because they want it to be quick. They thought by killing the ayatollah on an Islamic holiday would end the Iranian govt like a movie and were quickly proven wrong. Now they’re realizing their dire mistake with the economic chokehold they have on us and the world with the strait of Hormuz closed and won’t admit it.

>The Iran conflict is likely to be far shorter than the war in Iraq, Go home, WSJ, you're drunk on Kool-Aid. (The Iran War might well be shorter, but mostly because the US didn't even go in with much will to fight for us to have ebb away through mismanagement and massive casualties.)

All it will take is a sunk large U.S. ship and it be Vietnam all over again.  Both Iran and Russia are working together to make this happen.  

I know the democrats are less than desired. But the republicans have been batshit crazy, absurd, and disastrous ever since Reagan. Look at any economic chart, and republican deregulation and trickle down scam economics, has been marching us into a declining working class with each generation. People need to stop voting for the guy they want to have a beer with.

It's impossible to predict how this war ends because nobody know what the goal is. We can reverse engineer the key goals as; Regime change Recovery of enriched uranium Destruction of refining capability Destruction of missiles capability So the first two are complete failures, the third forth are partial successes at this point. BUT, now the goal of the negotiation is to reopen the strait, which wasn't a problem before the war. So the US in order to get the thing they previously had, needs to make concessions to the regime they hoped to remove. I don't think it will be a long war (because it can't be), so I think is more likely that Trump ends up making a deal he can claim is a success that reopens the strait but is ultimately leaving the world in a much worse position.

Why on earth would it be shorter than the Iraq war? Iran has twice the population as Iraq (92 vs. 46 million). Of course, mere population doesn't predict success in a military campaign, but it should come into play during an occupation. Iran's leadership, if it has any brains at all, will ditch the Islamic fundamentalist stuff and appeal to patriotism. With Basketball Jones Hegseth in charge of the US military and his eschewal of those pussified rules of engagement, there will be plenty of blood boiling anger among the Iranians, ready to follow Churchill's dictum "you can take one with you". Americans, too, will die, likewise a tragedy.

Will be far WORSE than Iraq!!

I truly hate the american government and the american people

The U.S. out classes every other nation in military power and projection. But just like Ukraine, showed Russia that unless you are fully committed and even if you are fully committed to the war you start, home team advantage has a huge impact on the outcome. You would think that Vietnam and Iraq would have made that lesson clear, but the current administration is full of incredibly stupid, incompetent, and extremely arrogant people who think that they can do anything. But at least Trump doesn’t have to hear about accusations of him raping a 13 year old girl anymore.

With China and Russia backing Iran, this war could go on for a very long time!

Why is this conflict supposed to be far shorter than Iraq? Remember, before the invasion Bush promised the Iraq war would be over in 6 weeks and would only cost $13B. Trump has already invaded. The White House is saying, "This will only take a few $B and last another 2 to 4 weeks." Why believe them? We invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Six-ish weeks later, on May 1st he declared major combat operations over. Did we leave? No. We still hadn't achieved the stated objective of finding and destroying the WMD. By June of 2003 a resistance movement had formed and was doing real damage to our troops. We began fighting an asymmetric war of occupation. In June, instead of leaving Bush says, "bring it on!" They did. In October of 2003 the survey team began to report they could find no evidence that Iraq had been developing WMD. What all the people opposed to the war had been saying was true - Iraq posed no imminent threat when we invaded, so the war was started illegally. Bush had committed a war crime. We found Saddam at the end of 2003, tried him, and hung him. 2004 and 2005 pass. We're still there, going door-to-door fighting the insurgents - aka natives that began to hate us with white-hot fury after we invaded their country and started kicking in the doors of their homes. Everything was going badly except for the guarding the oil infrastructure and securing the oil leases. 2006 and 2007 pass. Iraq is still not a viable nation. Obama takes office, and we redouble our efforts to bring the war to a close. He leads with new troop surges to appease the Pentagon folks saying they could succeed. 2008 and 2009 pass. They didn't succeed. In 2010 Obama has had enough. He has the Iraqis hold elections and pulls troops out. The problem with wars is that they are easy to start but hard to end. Vietnam had been a similar quagmire that we somehow couldn't extract ourselves from. Governments and populations take sides and duke it out until one side has had enough. A young Collin Powell - yeah, that Collin Powell - wrote the brilliant Powell Doctrine after his tours in Vietnam. It's a simple list of questions. The USA should not enter into hostilities until every one gets a "yes": 1. Is a vital national security interest threatened? 2. Do we have a clear attainable objective? 3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? 4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted? 5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? 6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered? 7. Is the action supported by the American people? 8. Do we have genuine broad international support? > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell\_Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine) When Trump ordered the invasion there wasn't a single yes on that list. There still isn't one a month lager; the shocked looks on the congressional folks faces after they were given classified briefings proves that. Iran was relatively peaceful a few months ago. Now they have a choke hold on the world, and they see no reason to let up. We may now have to actually beat them, on their home turf. The war of choice that Trump and Netanyahu stated is going to make the Iraq war look like a kitten fight. We're sliding into WW III. I just hope Trump doesn't decide he has to use the nukes. I only have hope. I know Trump doesn't have the intelligence, temperament, or judgment to not use them, so there is a non-zero chance we will be vaporized in the near future by a retaliatory strike. I would LOVE to see Trump impeached and removed.

No! It is a really well thought through situation. /s

Far shorter for whom? Murdoch and Trump? Irresponsible and poisonous people who don’t give a shit about the grandkids?

USA is ran by dumb asses

1. Make the same mistakes we did in Iraq 20 years ago 2. ... 3. Profit!

It's not a "mistake" and it never was. It's enrichment and corruption and distraction like it was in 1990 and in 2003 and now in 2026. Same war for oil, same corrupt assholes feeding the same wealth complex.

"Is the US repeating...?" No. The mad man idiot republican administration is doing all of this. The psychopaths that stormed the capital are running the country, and they're f****** destroying everything.

Maybe whenever there is a war, taxes on the wealthiest 5% goes up by 10% on income and capital gains automatically. I think then there won’t be pointless wars.

This is a repeat of Vietnam. At the time Vietnam started there was a belief (later proved correct) that huge untapped oil reserves were off the Vietnam coast. The military action started to control the oil and thereafter we got ourselves in a war that had no exit. Iran has no exit. The occupation of Iran would be enormously bloody. What we have done is given Iran the path to assert permanent control over the Strait of Hormuz. History will record this as the biggest military blunder in the history of man.

> The Iran conflict is likely to be far shorter than the war in Iraq That's some serious BS right there intended to minimize just how totally fucked up this situation is.

Nothing like stating the obvious.

Yes. The US never learns.

This is dumb. Despite the campaign promise of 'No New Wars', Republicans f****** love wars. This can be seen in opinion polls today where entering into a major war has limited affect on Republican favorability. Republicans love wars and they will attempt to stay in this one for as long as they can. They chose the 'America First' slogan because it becomes harder to argue that they really want 'America Last'. When you do so it makes it sound like each point is equally valid and it's just an opinion. But these Republicans don't give a shit about the American people. You can see it when they take away healthcare, take away food stamps, cut student loan forgiveness, force rising prices, rig the markets they claim to love, raise taxes on everybody but the rich, destroy the environment and alienate allies. Even today the President said he 'doesn't think about' the protests at all. Republicans hate Americans and its time to remove them from the seats of power or they will take America so far down the extremist hole there will be no coming back.

I think the only way this war will be somewhat short is if the US just leaves achieving nothing but temporary reduction of Iranian military capability.

Headlines like these only seek to normalize the fascism and the decay and rot if America happening before our eyes.  The WSJ is complicit and responsible just like the NYT and Washington Post and all the fascist mainstream news media owned by the fascists oligarchs.  If a billionaire doesn't consider paying increased taxes as a patriotic duty to our nation then they should  get the same treatments the rest of the Pedo Nazis get in Nurembourg 2. 

WSJ is propaganda. Stop posting this shite.

Wsj is nothing but propaganda slop.

It is this simple, the Middle East is not interested in living under our rule. The population would love for the freedoms we have, but they have to get their on their own terms.

# Is the U.S. Repeating the Plan That Leads to Forever Wars? Fixed it.

They don't want war to end....duh. If there is no war then how does Lockheed and all their friends make money? It always comes back to the money

Yes. 

Is it a "mistake" if you mean to do it? To use it as a tool?

“Who’s to say?”. As if this is a debate or it begins at a point of neutral ground

Mistakes? It sure looks like that's exactly what they want no matter what they say publicly. They are going to put troops on the ground, troops will die, they will get support for full blown invasion. At least that's what I think they think will happen.

IDK. A big reason America gets caught up in forever wars like Vietnam and the Middle East is America cares about optics. We try to win the hearts and minds of the same people we are bombing and are surprised it doesnt work. If instead we had just nuked North Vietnam or something, it probably would have crushed their resolve but thats not a win that works for America's interests nor a win that global society would tolerate. I think if Trump's America wants to go into Iran and conquer it, as long as they don't put any effort into winning their hearts and minds, it becomes actually achieveable goal. While it certainly wouldnt be easy, it wouldnt be literally impossible like it was in previous wars.

> The Iran conflict is likely to be far shorter than the war in Iraq Feeling it in your bones?

"Repeating the mistakes? Yes, Please." /s "During the war, corporations received contracts worth millions from the US Government for services including security, logistics, and military. According to an analysis by the Financial Times, the US spent at least $138 billion on contracts, with the top 10 contractors securing business worth at least $72 billion between them."; [https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/iraq-20-years-on-from-us-invasion-the-companies-that-profited-incl-co-responses/](https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/iraq-20-years-on-from-us-invasion-the-companies-that-profited-incl-co-responses/)

Forgive my crass language but WSJ can go f*** itself.

>A country that has funded and sent terrorists to attack the US and its allies for over four decades has had 90% of its military wiped out in a matter of weeks. >The US has lost less than 15 soldiers. Half of those losses were from a refueling accident. >The enemy has also lost most of their top leaders, both politically and militarily while we have lost none of our leaders. >HOWEVER, gas prices are high, so the US is losing. This is the logic of people who are thinking the war is going badly.