The country’s longest war came to an end exactly five years ago. Today it offers lessons for policymakers seeking to avoid an endless war in Iran.
Page A9From§Eachthe early evening edition — 30 August 2026
US strikes Iran again; newspaper of record wonders, again, why America can't quit its wars
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what happened, because the coverage has gotten sloppy: American forces struck two Iranian rocket launch sites. Two. Not two countries, not two continents, two launch sites, which by any reasonable defense standard counts as a measured, proportional, defensive action taken in direct response to an ongoing regional threat picture that the public, frankly, does not have full visibility into, and shouldn't need to, because that's what oversight structures exist for.
The regime's promised retaliation is, of course, rhetoric. Regimes vow revenge the way press secretaries promise transparency, it's part of the format. Nobody should read a 'vow of revenge' as an actual operational plan any more than they'd read a campaign promise as a binding contract. Although — I suppose some people do read campaign promises as binding contracts. That's a different column, we'll get to it another day.…
…(cont) The point stands: this is not a new war. This is a continuation of an existing posture that has been consistent across — okay, it has not been entirely consistent, there have been pauses, there was a period of 'weeks' between strikes, which the reporting specifically notes, so if we're being precise about it, there was in fact a gap during which nothing happened and now something is happening again, which is, I'll grant you, a pattern. A pattern is not the same as a habit. A habit implies dependency. This is strategy.
The New York Times ran a piece asking why the United States can't quit its wars, which, look, that headline is doing a lot of work. 'Can't quit' implies addiction, implies a compulsion the country doesn't control, and that framing is unhelpful, because it suggests the strikes on those two launch sites weren't a deliberate choice made by people in a room, which they were. Somebody chose this. Multiple people, probably, in a meeting, with slides, with a briefing document nobody outside the room gets to read.
So no, this isn't the United States failing to quit anything. This is the United States choosing, again, for reasons that remain classified, to do the thing it did the last time, and the time before that, and — you know, actually, rereading my own notes here, 'can't quit' might be the more accurate phrase after all. I'll have to get back to you on the official line.
“They hit two launch sites and the anchor calls it 'first strikes in weeks' like weeks is a long time, like this is a new season and not the same show renewed for another year. Nobody in this country votes on the war, they just keep paying for the tickets.”
“These were targeted, defensive strikes on legitimate military infrastructure, rocket launch sites don't rename themselves, and any comparison to broader conflict is media hype. Look, it's the first strike in weeks, so — okay, it's not the first strike ever, obviously, but it's a pattern of proportional response. That's the position.”
The receipts
The Strait of Hormuz remains the primary flashpoint in the conflict.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed the attack that reportedly killed and wounded several people, but did not provide further details.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.