There is No Long-Term Strategy
There is No Long-Term Strategy As I write this, on January 8th, we are a less than 24 hours removed from Iran's attack on a U.S. and Coalition Forces base at Al-Asad, Iraq. Just as a side note, while deployed in Iraq in 2005, I took a helicopter day-trip from Balad Air Base once. I cannot remember the day, and I do not remember much about Al-Asad. That was in 2005, when we had hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq. We continue to have thousands of U.S. Military personnel all over the Middle East, somewhere north of 65,000. Most Americans do not ever think about how many are there. We do pay attention when many more are issued deployment orders, as many are now. The U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani started the latest round of tensions, but that is really an unfair statement to make. Our history of mistrust with Iran is long and complicated. But taking out Soleimani is part of the Trump Administration's strategy of "getting tough" with Iran. The Obama A