The Inexplicable War

Susan Estrich
Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:00:00 -0700
Opinion

Why are we there? Is it because Israel was going to go there first/anyway, or because we wanted Israel to go? What are we doing there? Did we really bomb a girls' school? How could we have made such a mistake? How can we not take responsibility if we did?

You hear it all from this administration — conflicting explanations, denials that have to be reversed, inconsistent accounts. The president says we're almost done, Hegseth the Pretty One says we're in for the duration (he has banned photographers based on unflattering shots of himself, which is understandable given that he was picked for his looks), and then the president says he also agrees with Hegseth. Confused? How can you not be?

Sure, the dead Ayatollah was a very bad guy, of whom there are far too many in the world. But the son of the Ayatollah appears to be just as bad a guy or worse than the father, which raises the obvious question of why we are spilling American blood, let alone spending $1 billion a day to replace one with the other.
Updated: Sat Mar 14, 2026

Why are we there? Is it because Israel was going to go there first/anyway, or because we wanted Israel to go? What are we doing there? Did we really bomb a girls' school? How could we have made such a mistake? How can we not take responsibility if we did?

You hear it all from this administration — conflicting explanations, denials that have to be reversed, inconsistent accounts. The president says we're almost done, Hegseth the Pretty One says we're in for the duration (he has banned photographers based on unflattering shots of himself, which is understandable given that he was picked for his looks), and then the president says he also agrees with Hegseth. Confused? How can you not be?

Sure, the dead Ayatollah was a very bad guy, of whom there are far too many in the world. But the son of the Ayatollah appears to be just as bad a guy or worse than the father, which raises the obvious question of why we are spilling American blood, let alone spending $1 billion a day to replace one with the other.

No one wants Iran to wield nuclear weapons. But — we were told — the last set of attacks on Iran supposedly obliterated their nuclear capacity. Was that right? If it wasn't, we need to know why not. If it was, what are we doing now?

Credibility matters in times of war. We need to be able to trust — and verify — what we are told by the government. If we can't, we can't support the war effort. We, being we the people. And if we the people can't support the war effort, it won't go well in the long run. It is not fair to the young men and women who put their lives on the line to carry out orders. It ultimately does no good, while bringing nothing but death and devastation to the people on the ground.

I thought we had all learned the lesson that you can't fight a successful war without public support. And after the forever wars of recent decades, that public support is not a given. We are skeptical with reason. We have been in enough wars with no viable end games to expect that you don't start a war unless you also have a plan for how it ends. How can Pretty Pete not know this? How can President Donald Trump, who railed against forever wars?

We have yet to hear what the endgame plan is. It's not because the question has not been raised. It is raised every day by reporters at the White House and the Pentagon, and debated endlessly by the parades of experts on television and online. And yet what is most striking is that for all the hot air and word salad, no one seems to have an endgame. The bad guys are calling the shots in Iran, and they are showing no signs of capitulating.

And it's taken its toll. It's taking a toll on the world economy. It's imposing the costs on farmers who need fertilizer. It's turning going to the gas station into a shock and awe experience, as you see the price at the pump literally going up before your very eyes. And then you have President Trump, who last week suggested that higher oil prices were worth it because of the benefits of the war (what benefits), and then turned around on social media, writing that higher oil prices are a good thing because the United States is a major energy producer. Unfortunately, the average American paying through the nose for gas is not a major energy producer. Who is Trump talking to?

This much is clear from the rhetoric, and it is becoming clearer in the polls. He is not talking to the country in the way he needs to. He is not building support for a war that threatens the economic security of voters, which is the most important voting issue of all. If you were uncertain about your economic future before this war and worried about affordability, the war has only made it worse. Politically speaking, that makes it an inexplicable war.