The Iran Distemper

The enemy was dispatched militarily in a matter of weeks. They persist in firing on civilian tankers, but otherwise pop up infrequently and are quickly disabused. We’ve laid Iran under siege. As it rates, they’re getting a minuscule amount of oil out of the country through Pakistan, but are otherwise shut down, watching drill sites atrophy and become unusable.

Meanwhile, there’s more oil coming out of the region than before the war—kinetic military action, and with none coming from Iran, that means neighboring countries are exporting enough to make up for and exceed the amount once sold by the Ayatollahs. I suspect that pleases our allies. Further, new routes have been explored and found practical or not, as needs dictated. The system is more resilient.

We have engaged from a distance. This isn’t Vietnam or Afghanistan. This isn’t even Bosnia. There’s no Charlie firing on our soldiers and Marines from jungle depths, no IEDs, no tiger pits. One of the few reported engagements on the ground was a successful rescue mission of a downed pilot involving a makeshift airport built behind enemy lines. The military has been exceptional.

Twenty-three servicemen have fallen. Eight hundred and sixty-five have been wounded. This is not an action without costs, nor are those lost and wounded to be forgotten, but it is a staggeringly low amount of casualties for a military operation lasting nearly a year. In peacetime, the military suffers between eight hundred and eleven hundred casualties per year. Per USAFacts.org, “Eighty-four percent of these deaths were due to accidents, illness, and suicide or self-inflicted wounds.” The same source states that “Since 1980 less than 10%” are attributable to “hostile action.” Were per-year statistics presented out of sequence and without labels, it would be nearly impossible to identify the year including the nine-month Iran conflict among the others.

On October 26 of this year, National Security Journal ran the following headline: “Everyone Sees This Coming: Donald Trump Is Getting Ready to Strike Iran Again and Tehran Is Getting Ready to Respond.” The article teases with:

Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish officials are in Tehran trying to head off another war, as U.S. officials tell CNN American forces could launch a major offensive within four days of an order. Iran’s foreign minister says any scenario is conceivable, while the White House says no strikes will come before the midterms.

We have day-to-day conflict. Iran is firing on shipping nearly every day, but to little effect. We have boxed them in, denied them all but the smallest outlet for aggression, and are waiting them out. So much so that National Security Journal deems it headline-worthy that we are going to attack. They mistakenly refer to what is widely predicted from a distance of days—that in itself is telling—as the beginning of “another war.” But such is the nature of this quagmire that we aren’t often at war so much as swatting away blows and waiting. We're at war, and this attack is the continuance of the one initiated in February. The enemy was so crippled early on that one journal, whose business is advertised in the title, sees fit to, at least colloquially, refer to what happened as being over and what they see coming as something new.

The most successful complaints about the war have been economic, specifically regarding the price of gas and specifically coming from the left. They claim to be upset by this. I hate to be blunt, but I don’t believe them. I don’t believe that the cost of gas troubles them one whit. When Trump left office in 2021, the national average price of gas was $2.39. Under the Biden Regency, the average was $3.46. For Trump's second term I have the average at, again, $3.46—note that some sources claim $3.87. Trump’s second-term average spiked at $4.48. High, but not as high as Biden’s spike at $5.47.

Under the Biden Regency, I was told that high gas prices were not a drag on the economy by people who were prepared to vote for a continuance. The idea that rising transportation costs affect the cost of every good in one way or another was scoffed at. The circumstance under their guy is fine while the same circumstance under another is evidence of incompetence? I do not believe them.

The Iran war, the quagmire or forever war of the last nine months, has been a disaster in every way except all the ways that are quantifiable. Our military performed and continues to perform exceptionally. The summoned distemper over gas prices is a farce. The regime that calls for the destruction of the Great Satan and preaches apocalyptic cleansing for the world, that chants “Death to the USA,” entered negotiations with us by telling Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff that they had enough enriched uranium to have eleven nuclear weapons within ten days and would continue enriching more. That threat has been dealt with. Iran tried briefly to hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage, a presage of what a nuclear Iran would have no doubt been capable of doing: to dictate oil prices to the world. Traffic still moves through the Strait, and with alternate pathways explored, the Strait is diminished strategically.

Someone began a tribal chant that this war was a disaster, and the faithful picked it up. That noise certainly damaged the president. Given the midterm results, I suspect the Democrats wouldn’t have had things play out any other way.

[Originally printed at American Thinker on 11/6/26]