By Esti DeAngelis, Managing Editor
When President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury to combat the Iranian regime a few weeks ago, outrage came from the most predictable of places. The far left and far right, which are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from each other, said this was yet another example of Israel coaxing the United States to do its bidding. Others asserted that the war was an attempt to distract the American public from the Epstein files. Libertarian non-interventionists decried the beginning of what was to be another “forever war.”
Such critiques reached a fever pitch when the first American service members were killed. Posters appeared in Washington, D.C. asserting that fallen soldiers had “died fighting Iran for the Epstein class.” The less overtly cynical mourned the “waste” of young lives. Scores of Americans have become convinced in recent days that the war is benefiting only Israel and the American elite.
The loss of American troops is and always has been heartbreaking. But there is something sinister and manipulative about asserting that they died for anyone but America. Especially in a country with voluntary enlistment, to imply that service members’ sacrifices benefit not America but someone or somewhere else cheapens the choices these heroes make. It is the job of those in power to cherish the lives of those who serve by being prudent and strategic in regard to foreign intervention. But it’s hard not to think that those who choose to serve do so with the full knowledge that sacrifice is still necessary — not sacrifice for Israel or for a cabal of corrupt elites, but for America.
The particularities of how and when we ought to confront the Iranian regime are valid areas of debate. But to utterly reject that military action is a way to achieve this goal seems to contradict the views of those who voluntarily enlist, despite the fact that the isolationists claim to speak for them.
Still, the anti-interventionist viewpoint is worth exploring. Largely due to what most now understand as the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many have come to view the loss of American troops as inherently pointless tragedies. It is easy to understand why. No war since World War II has endured in the American imagination as a true victory. Wars in Vietnam and Korea failed to achieve meaningful objectives. Intervention in the Middle East until now has left behind a Middle East just as chaotic as it was found. Because of this, the American public is largely hesitant to support another war.
But criticisms of these wars have become far too simplistic. These wars are heavily unpopular today for a number of legitimate reasons: the U.S. was wrong about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction development, you can’t will an Islamic society into becoming a democracy and we suffered humiliating defeats in Saigon and Kabul. These reasons are situational, not universal. To argue that the real problem is foreign intervention is reductive, and to say that because those wars were wrong, all wars are wrong is to ignore the cases when foreign intervention was majorly successful. World War II is one example, but there are others. The might of the West liberated Kuwait and stopped an ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia. The might of the West defeated ISIS.
The honest truth is that some foreign interventions worked and some did not, and we ought to evaluate each case on its own merits. Iran is not Iraq. To pull back from this war completely because of America’s past failures overgeneralizes the lessons we ought to have learned from those failures.
But more than this, it also assumes that pulling back from the world stage works. It is true that the United States, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, has occupied a uniquely ascendant position on the world stage. This position is one that, despite some foreign interventions, has allowed many Americans to feel insulated from national security threats. But this period may be coming to an end. New threats emerge all over the world every day, and the notion that America is immune from feeling the effects of a militarily empowered Russia, China or, yes, Iran is foolish. When a state chants “death to America,” we ought to believe them, even if missiles will not fall on our cities tomorrow. After all, it is the Islamic Republic of Iran that took our embassy workers hostage and that funds the terrorist groups that have killed and continue to kill Americans, including the service members whose lives those of almost all ideological persuasions claim to so value. We should take these actions as a warning and neutralize threats before an attack on our homeland is imminent.
There are strong cases to be made for an even more extensive interventionist policy than one that only seeks to eliminate direct threats to the United States. Many argue that if we pull back from the world, Russia and China will fill the void, intervening in the places where we won’t and building anti-American coalitions based on other countries’ reliance on them.
Somehow, there is a sense that though there is good-faith criticism of excessive foreign entanglement, there is bad-faith criticism as well, which does not care about America’s future position on the world stage. The far left is openly anti-American, but the far right seems to be developing a similar problem, justifying Russian aggression and even defending Hitler as a German nationalist with whom Churchill picked an unnecessary fight. For these people, the values of the West are not even worth defending, even if they use the language of “America first.”
There is no one more in contrast with these cynics and demoralizers than our brave men and women in uniform, whose endorsement of American greatness comes in the form of sacrifice for its sake. Our service members have always risked their lives to build a future they knew they may not live to see. It is this attitude that makes America great and that makes the West great. This sacrifice liberated Europe. This sacrifice progressed America beyond the moral rot of slavery. And this sacrifice exactly 250 years ago freed America from tyranny.
The West has failed and faltered, but it is great and strives to become more great. If that makes you uncomfortable, your problem isn’t with Operation Epic Fury, it’s with the notion that America is great to begin with.
War can be a terrible thing, and the path toward defeating or even incapacitating the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a simple one. Conversations, discourse and debate about how this fight ought to be fought are necessary. But we cannot sit back and watch history happen to us. Many seem to think history has stopped, or at least that the U.S. is immune to its worst consequences. But history never stops, it only moves in cycles. Freedom and prosperity are historical exceptions, not the rule, and they will disappear again if we do not defend them.
A great tragedy of so much of human conflict is that the best and bravest are the first to lose their lives. But those willing to meet the moment are the people who make our country great. They are the ones who make our country worth defending in the first place. Some, it appears, are increasingly convinced that our country does not need or does not deserve defending at all. The great irony is that the freedom to speak those views was secured by the sacrifice of others. So, a suggestion for the cynics, and for all of us: when a service member falls in the line of duty, mourn the loss for the tragedy that it is. But first, say thank you.
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