Commentary: A US war with Iran is close. But what’s the goal?

NO BLOWBACK FROM PAST IRAN, VENEZUELA OPERATIONS

One cause of Trump’s rashness is that success is the father of hubris. The ease with which Israeli forces dealt with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then Iran’s vaunted missile threat, enticed Trump to join in the brief war on the Islamic Republic last June — and, as he kept repeating afterward, the American B2 stealth bomber operation was executed perfectly.

So, too, the lightning-quick operation to abduct Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro. In both cases, there was no meaningful military or political blowback, no painful spike in oil prices that might have spurred inflation and anger at home. 

But, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Javier Blas has said of assuming energy markets will again remain unruffled, past performance is no guarantee – and that’s as true of war and politics as it is of commodity prices.

Last year, Israel’s air strikes were limited to 12 days and the US involvement to a much smaller number of sorties against just three nuclear sites. Even so, 28 Israelis and 1,190 Iranians died. Of those, 27 Israelis and – according to figures from the US-based non-profit Human Rights Activists In Iran – probably half of the Iranian casualties were civilians.