by Winston Wendell
President Barack Obama defended the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with a blunt warning: “The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war.”
Now, years later, I watch that warning turn painfully real. When Donald Trump pulled the United States out of a nuclear deal that had kept Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in check, his administration threw the country into a disaster of its own making.
On the military front, this war’s a failure from every angle. Targeted strikes came and went, and the Iranian government endures, now with even tougher hardliners from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge. Iran still holds most of its missile stock, its mobile launchers, its underground bunkers. Drone and missile factories keep running. Worst of all, Tehran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz—is even tighter. Those photos of commercial ships stuck near Larak Island say it all. Washington’s shortsighted choices gave our adversaries control of some of the world’s most important economic lifelines.
The cost? It’s staggering, both in dollars and lives. We burned through about $25 billion at the start, and the spending hasn’t stopped. At home, Americans feel it everywhere, gas prices, groceries, you name it. But it’s the human cost that hurts most. U.S. service members have died, and hundreds cope with wounds they’ll never shake, all for a conflict with no clear end, no real transparency, and not a word of congressional approval. Like millions of others, I feel deep frustration. This is a war with no purpose, no strategy, and no exit.
Trump’s aggressive reversal left America boxed in with terrible options. If Washington caves to Tehran—giving up huge sums of money or control over the Strait of Hormuz—we abandon the basic principle of free maritime navigation. Global commerce depends on that. An emboldened Iranian regime, flush with cash, will just buy new air defenses, load up on missiles, and use the Strait for leverage as long as it wants.
No one wins here. There’s only the bitter fallout of a war we never needed, a conflict that put America’s security at risk, bled our economy, and left the world less stable than ever.
Blue Press Journal 