by Winston Wendell
The ancient art of diplomacy teaches a simple but an extremely important lesson, which is that one should never start a war unless they have an exit strategy. The Trump administration ignored that particular wisdom, dooming the United States to yet another hopeless conflict. The war with Iran is doomed to happen, and that is entirely down to Donald Trump and his ill-considered decision to engage in it without any thought to an exit strategy.
War is not an end in itself but a means to achieve political goals through military action. By initiating a war with Iran, the Trump administration thought it through as far as wanting to demonstrate America’s military might, but they did not have a viable plan as to what to do after the initial display of force. In fact, the famous military theorist Carl von Clausewitz warned that war is the continuation of politics by other means. But in the case of Trump and Iran, it appears that there was no particular political goal beyond the point of making a show of strength.
Without a well-defined plan and an exit strategy, the White House has failed to achieve any concrete result in the case of Iranian military involvement. While it makes for a great show to target and kill high-profile terrorist leaders or even the foreign leadership, such actions have serious and dire consequences for years to come. With the war against Iran, those consequences are to be found in an exacerbated opposition to the US in the form of hundreds of proxy groups ready to fight America’s soldiers. Moreover, Iran has effortlessly shut down the critical world trade routes in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, as well as accelerate their nuclear program.
By failing to formulate a plan and an exit strategy, the White House has placed the United States on a collision course with another unpopular and long war. As the history of the USA teaches us, it is much easier to get into a war than to get out of it with honor and minimal losses. A famous analyst Richard Haass put it succinctly when he stated that the problem is not starting a war, it is ending one.
A nation’s leadership is not supposed to make rash decisions and waste its soldiers’ lives. The ability to plan a proper political campaign and follow through until the very end is what sets a leader apart from an opportunist. By rushing into a military conflict with Iran, the United States have demonstrated that it does not have the calibre of leadership under Donald Trump that is required to handle such matters with care and precision.
Blue Press Journal 