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No, U.S. Strikes on Iran Are Not the Start of a New "Forever War" in the Middle East

(Jerusalem Post) Maj. (ret.) John Spencer - Iran is not Iraq. It is not Afghanistan. This is not the same war. Israel and the U.S. are not talking about regime change. This is preemption. The mission is clear and limited. It is to irreversibly destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program, not to occupy Tehran, rebuild Iran's government, or democratize the Middle East. I was on the ground in Iraq as an American soldier, sent on missions to find weapons of mass destruction that were not there. That is not the case with Iran. The IAEA has verified uranium enriched to 83.7%. It has documented missing stockpiles and hidden facilities. The U.S. is not at war with Iran, but it carried out a singular, strategic strike that only it could conduct, targeting Iran's most hardened and deeply buried nuclear enrichment facilities. This was not just about assisting an ally. It was about doing what only the U.S. could do to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear-armed state. This was not a prelude to war. It was a deliberate, proportional military action to send a clear signal. Iran's path to a nuclear bomb will not be tolerated. This was not a hypothetical threat. It was real, immediate, and accelerating. Waiting did not reduce the threat. It allowed it to harden. Every day of delay gave Iran more time to disperse its program, develop more advanced delivery systems, and raise the cost of future action. The window to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran was closing. Acting when we did was not escalation. It was prevention. The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
2025-06-24 00:00:00
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