America is now ending the second week of its newest war, a war with, so far, only a hazy objective. As the country slept and depending on time zone, President Trump went on television either on the last day of February or the first day of March, to announce an American-Israeli military attack on Iran.
“A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran,” the President announced. Standing behind a podium, open collar and wearing a white ball cap emblazoned with a contrasting ‘USA,’ the president, elected on a promise of ‘no new wars,’ announced his second significant military offensive of the new year. Just weeks earlier, January 3rd, he ordered an assault on Venezuela to capture its president. President Nicola Maduro now sits in an American jail awaiting trial.
The Iran attack took the world by surprise since Iran and the U.S. were in the midst of what was thought were negotiations to quell differences between the two countries over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Perhaps, not shocking, the attack on Iran does not appear to have the support of a majority of Americans, still war weary after two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iran.
A TIME Magazine poll taken hours after the start of combat operations asking what Americans felt about the surprise attack showed only a 27 percent approval of the joint U.S.-Israel war with 43 percent disapproving. A CBS survey taken three days after the start of hostilities showed 60 percent of the 1,400 Americans polled still unclear about the administration explanations for its actions.
One reason for the responses may be the differing explanations by the President and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the start of the offensive. Trump offered that he ordered the strike because Tehran was readying a strike of its own.
Rubio said the U.S. struck only after learning Israel was preparing to attack Iran and that Iran would counter by striking U.S. forces in the region.
The same division for this war is echoed by members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation. Republican Congressmen Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd both stand with the President. Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper and Democratic Congressman and combat veteran Jason Crow are opposed.
Evans, also a veteran, called the war a “necessary step to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapon capabilities.” Hurd, who represents Pueblo County and the state’s 3rd Congressional District, said the action was necessary to hold Iran accountable for past transgressions against Americans and “to degrade its ability to threaten Americans and our allies.”
On the other side of this ‘war’—a controversial term since Congress has not voted to authorize one—is Crow, a combat veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since the offensive began, Crow has ping-ponged across cable news channels voicing his full-throated opposition to what he and others have been called Trump’s war of choice.
With only scant opposition from congressional Republicans to the on-going battle, one that Trump has not ruled out sending in ground troops, the former Army Ranger has castigated his colleagues about it, from cost to casualties.
“They don’t understand the suffering,” Crow told MS Now host Ali Velshi. “They don’t understand that Americans don’t want this…they’re sick and tired of financing this.”
A war-weary country bled to the tune of an estimated $5.8 trillion dollars along with more than 7,000 American war dead in Afghanistan and Iraq, not including thousands of American troops permanently injured, has soured the country on Middle East skirmishes, he said. All tolled, it is estimated that nearly a million Afghans and Iraqis have also died from these wars.
Crow, who represents Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, says the only ones who approve of the war are those who get rich on it. It is “oil executives and CEO’s who get rich off of these wars,” he said. Meanwhile, it is the lower and middle class who fight and die in war-of-choice conflicts. “We can afford war,” asked Crow, “but not healthcare!”
Over the weekend, the United Kingdom dropped its hesitancy to get involved in the conflict and said it would send its largest aircraft carrier, but in an ungracious turn, Trump flatly turned it down. “We don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won.”
Trump’s declaration of victory may turn out far too premature. Iran has pledged to keep fighting and said if U.S. ground troops deploy, as Trump has hinted, it will be waiting. Additionally, it has been reported that both China and Russia are lending both materiel and intelligence to Iran.
While six American troops were killed at their Kuwait post early in the fighting, another American soldier was killed recently in an Iranian airstrike at a Saudi Arabian military base, as many as a thousand Iranians have died. Among them were as many as 165 young girls killed when their elementary school was reportedly hit by an American airstrike.
There have also been thousands of Iranians displaced since the fighting began. Beyond the Iranian border, there have also been Iranian-launched missiles aimed at neighboring countries, including Dubai one of the Middle East’s most visited vacation spots.
The end of this war remains a mystery. But what is clear is that as it rages on, the world economy, fueled by middle eastern oil and liquified natural gas that moves through the Strait of Hormuz, has become a day-to-day, hour-by-hour concern.
Since the war began, U.S. gasoline pump prices have spiked to the highest levels since 2022. According to GasBuddy, which tracks day-to-day prices, gas is now averaging $3.11 a gallon. But as in the early days of any war, rising gas prices are just the first ‘pebble in the pond.’ The ripples simply go on and on.
