George Santayana conveyed it best when he said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” According to this logic, it seems our leaders don’t have the brightest memories, or at the very least they are choosing to ignore history. It’s not hard to think of times when the U.S. has involved itself in foreign affairs and suffered for it. 

  In the 1950s-70s, president after president thought it was a good idea to keep sending American troops into Vietnam to fight off Communism. Apparently a country under Communist control thousands of miles away is a huge threat to American democracy. The odd part is, the U.S never officially declared war on the North Vietnamese. (Sound familiar?) They just slowly started introducing advisors which eventually turned into thousands of American troops dying brutal deaths in the hands of the North Vietnamese. The U.S. ended up facing an embarrassing defeat largely due to the lack of morale and knowledge of the land. 

  Another instance similar to this was the Korean War. Fought under the same justification of containing Communism during the Cold War, America’s efforts landed North and South Korea right back where they started but with a border so secure it would make the U.S-Mexico border look like a doggy door. Another fun fact about Korea that not many people know is that according to congress.gov, there are still around 28,500 American troops stationed in Korea. Even before the armistice between North and South Korea was signed, that should have been considered too many troops. Now that the war is no longer raging, it is practically pointless to have American citizens stationed in a country for years on end. However tragic they may be, for the most part it is not our job to prevent other countries from going to war. 

  The list could go on and on of times the U.S unnecessarily involved itself in foreign affairs. However, it’s also important to look at the present and the reasons the war in Iran is not working out for the betterment of our country. Firstly, as hinted at earlier, Congress never declared war on Iran. The Constitution explicitly states that Congress is the only branch that is able to declare war. Despite this, President Trump has decided that he can destroy an entire country’s upper leadership without having Congress declare war. He has also completely violated the War Powers Resolution which requires the president to notify Congress 48 hours before any military action and gives him 60 days to withdraw troops. It’s especially difficult to justify these actions considering the fact that according to Pew Research, 61% of Americans oppose the military action being taken in Iran. Most people just care about getting through the day which is considerably harder when gas prices have increased 51% since the war began according to NBC. George Washington warned us perfectly in his farewell address, a document frequently referenced but seldom listened to. He stated that “the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” He warns that favoring one nation or hating another can only lead to trouble. The U.S. seems to extremely favor Israel at this time and have extreme hate for Iran. While the Iranian regime is nothing to be praised, they don’t appear to be the imminent threat that our and Israel’s governments keep claiming it is. For decades they have been warning that any second Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon and use it against Israel or even the U.S. Looking again at history, we can see that is not how countries with nuclear weapons typically operate. The only reason the U.S. and the Soviet Union didn’t drop nuclear bombs on each other was the assurance that the other would fight back and destroy them. So even if Iran got a nuclear weapon, it is highly unlikely that they would unleash it onto someone and run the very high risk of getting obliterated afterward.

  All in all, the war in Iran is unconstitutional, a waste of money, and a spit in the face of history. Despite this, I doubt our government will end it very soon. At least you can mark it down in the history books that there is at least one conservative who disagrees with this embarrassing excuse for foreign policy.