President Trump has said many times he doesn’t like “endless wars.”
Then what was he thinking when he escalated – again – the confrontation with Iran that he began in 2018, when he decided against all advice to the contrary to pull out of the nuclear deal with a country that by all evidence was in compliance with its part of the bargain?
In the ensuing months, and smarting over Trump’s 2019 unilateral sanctions against Iran, Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iran militia, fired rockets at a military base in Iraq, killing a contractor and wounding four troops.
Trump responded with airstrikes that killed 25 members of the militia.
(More: Iran vows ‘harsh’ response to US killing of top general; Tennessee local lawmakers react)