The US may send thousands of troops to Iran. Have we learned nothing from the past? | Moustafa Bayoumi

The US-Israel warfare connected Iran is simply a colossal blunder of world humanities proportions. As clear an act of aggression arsenic 1 tin imagine, nan warfare is blatantly illegal, continuing nan decease rustle to world rule and norms that began (most recently) pinch Israel’s genocidal run successful Gaza.

The warfare has besides been launched pinch magnificently mediocre planning, arsenic nan United States seems shocked by and unprepared for really Iran uses each intends astatine its disposal to restrict shipping successful nan strait of Hormuz. And pinch nan monolithic disruption to nan world proviso of power and definite basal commodities, nan world system is teetering connected collapse, pinch nan United States and Israel mortgaging nan futures of galore poorer nations astir nan world – particularly successful Asia and Africa – for their ain imperial adventurism.

Now, successful what could beryllium a motion of important escalation aft a period of this needless and obscene war, nan Pentagon is poised to move thousands of crushed troops into nan region and readying itself for “weeks” of imaginable crushed operations, according to reports.

Why is this happening again? Have we learned thing from nan past?

More than 2 decades ago, connected 7 February 2003, US defense caput Donald Rumsfeld told American troops successful Europe that immoderate penetration of Iraq would beryllium brief. “It is not knowable really agelong that conflict would last,” Rumsfeld said. “It could past six days, six weeks. I uncertainty six months.” With his signature aphoristic speaking style, Rumsfeld mightiness person sounded for illustration a poet to some, but it turns retired he was a beautiful lousy subject planner.

That illegal US-led warfare began connected 20 March 2003, and US combat troops remained successful Iraq not for six months but for adjacent to 9 years. And that’s if we return charismatic pronouncements astatine look value. Officially, American combat troops near nan state successful 2011, but US forces successful different roles person remained successful Iraq, including successful nan semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, since nan 2003 invasion.

As we each now know, nan US ne'er discovered nan feared “weapons of wide destruction” that ostensibly led to nan war, nor was nan US capable to toggle shape Iraq into a vassal state. That didn’t mean nan warfare wasn’t enormously costly successful position of lives and expenditures. By 2006, nan warfare had contributed to much than half a cardinal Iraqi deaths, according to a transverse sectional study published successful nan esteemed aesculapian diary The Lancet. US taxpayers had spent a staggering $1.92tn to support nan warfare by 2020. Meanwhile, much than 4,500 American soldiers were killed. Iraqi nine was decimated.

In his 2006 book Fiasco, nan Washington Post’s elder Pentagon newsman Thomas Ricks wrote that nan penetration of Iraq “was based connected possibly nan worst warfare scheme successful American history. It was a run scheme for a fewer battles, not a scheme to prevail and unafraid victory.”

There whitethorn now beryllium title to Ricks’s damning assessment. When nan US-led penetration of Iraq began, nan US had assembled a unit of 150,000 troops to invade Iraq. The UK contributed astir 46,000 troops for nan invasion, and different nations besides contributed. The mixed forces numbered almost 250,000 troops astatine nan clip of nan invasion. And Iraq, it should beryllium noted, is simply a overmuch smaller state than Iran, some successful position of organization and geography.

This clip around, arsenic nan US is signaling that it whitethorn nonstop crushed troops into Iran, it has astatine its disposal a unit of astir 50,000 troops successful nan Middle East. This is only 10,000 much than are usually successful nan area. The ngo objectives being talked astir for these US troops – everything from occupying Iranian territory to locating and removing Iran’s stockpiled uranium to seizing power of cardinal islands – look to me, personification who admittedly is not a subject strategist, to be, shall I say, aspirational.

This is not to opportunity that I subscribe to immoderate portion of this war. It’s an reproach to civilization. It’s besides a continuation of nan 2003 Iraq invasion. The US believed that overthrowing Saddam Hussein and occupying a awesome Arab state would everlastingly tilt nan dynamics of nan region toward Uncle Sam. That didn’t happen. Instead, Iraq’s aged rival Iran emerged pinch overmuch much clout and power successful nan years since American boots deed nan crushed successful Baghdad. If nan thought now is that Iran must beryllium demolished nan measurement Iraq was demolished, 1 wonders who nan adjacent victor from nan constricted reasoning of US politicians will be. Will it beryllium Russia? Or China? Or both?

Meanwhile, Israel’s intentions successful this warfare are progressively clear. While American attraction is focused almost exclusively connected Iran, Israeli mobilization remains, erstwhile again, fixated connected grabbing Lebanese territory. (Israel illegally occupied confederate Lebanon from 1982-2000.) “I person conscionable instructed to further grow nan existing information buffer zone,” Israeli premier curate Benjamin Netanyahu said successful a video connection connected 29 March. “We are wished to fundamentally alteration nan business successful nan northbound [of Israel].” Though Israel claims its actions are successful self-defense against rocket occurrence coming from confederate Lebanon, Israel violated its 2024 ceasefire statement pinch Hezbollah astir 10,000 times successful its first twelvemonth of implementation alone. For Israel, Iranian authorities illness whitethorn beryllium nan icing connected nan cake. But nan cake, it seems to me, is Lebanon.

The United States, connected nan different hand, appears much willing successful a Venezuela-style takeover of Iran, and Trump whitethorn person fooled himself into reasoning this was not only imaginable but easy. It’s turning retired to beryllium not truthful easy astatine all, and arsenic nan warfare drags on, and arsenic much American soldiers perchance get caught up successful nan conflict and killed, nan fame of this already unpopular war will plummet further. By introducing crushed combat into a poorly planned warfare and pinch midterm elections astir nan corner, it whitethorn move retired that nan only authorities that is changed by this “excursion”, to get a euphemism from nan American president, is his own.

• Moustafa Bayoumi is nan writer of nan award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab successful America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from nan War connected Terror. He is professor of English astatine Brooklyn College, City University of New York