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The U.S. has been at war for more than 20 of the past 25 years, in three major conflicts all in the same region - first, Afghanistan, then Iraq, now Iran. Now, none of the wars have gone nearly as well as U.S. presidents said that they would. So why is the U.S. so often at war and finding it so hard to win? NPR's Greg Myre has our story.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Here's President George W. Bush in 2001...
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GEORGE W BUSH: The Taliban regime is coming to an end.
MYRE: ...And President Obama in 2011...
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BARACK OBAMA: The end of war in Iraq reflects a larger transition. The tide of war is receding.
MYRE: ...And President Trump just a few days ago.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The Iran war has been a tremendous military success.
MYRE: In all three wars, the U.S. military unleashed overwhelming power that greatly weakened or ousted the enemy in the early days of fighting. Yet, time and again, raw military might has not translated into clear political success and the kind of fundamental change the U.S. was seeking.
PETER BERGEN: We generally do a pretty good job of the breaking things and killing people - the inception of the wars.
MYRE: Peter Bergen is the author of a new book, "All The Presidents' Wars," which looks at U.S. conflicts over the past quarter century. Bergen, a national security analyst at CNN, says the U.S. keeps falling short when it comes to ending wars.
BERGEN: We, the United States, tend to not plan for the day after - the peace that follows the war.
MYRE: With an emphasis on military power over diplomatic deals, the U.S. keeps expecting wars that will be brief and relatively low cost. That's according to Paul Salem, a Middle East analyst in Lebanon.
PAUL SALEM: The U.S. has an imperial appetite but a tourist's approach to it.
MYRE: Salem is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. He says this contradiction defined the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and a similar scenario is playing out in Iran.
SALEM: Their recent history is not one of stability and deep institutions that you can just come in and change somebody at the top and everything works out.
MYRE: Peter Bergen reinforces that idea. He says the U.S. has been acting like an empire without wanting to be an empire.
BERGEN: Empires typically require people to learn languages, stay there for a long time, not be there on just short tours. We don't do the kinds of things that would be necessary to hold on to territories for a long time. We're very reluctant to do it.
MYRE: President Trump promised to keep the U.S. out of forever wars, yet, in attacking Iran, he's taking on the largest and most powerful U.S. rival in the region. And the president is trying to do it without ground troops, which has limited U.S. casualties. Douglas Lute, a retired Army lieutenant general, does not support using ground troops, but he says it's important to recognize that without them, the U.S. needs to scale back its goals.
DOUGLAS LUTE: When we launch only a bombing campaign but we retain maximalist goals, like regime change, you don't have any prospect for success unless you're just lucky. And being lucky is not the place to start a military campaign.
MYRE: Trump has called, at various times, for eliminating Iran's nuclear program, toppling the government, destroying its air force, navy and missile program. Lute sees parallels to earlier wars when he served as the so-called war czar, coordinating efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan under Presidents Bush and Obama.
LUTE: We've had repeated disconnects between ends, ways and means. We've had a lack of sufficient understanding of what we were getting into.
MYRE: For all its muscle, U.S. military power has its limits and diplomacy has largely been sidelined, according to Paul Salem.
SALEM: Advice from the State Department was kind of brushed aside as, you know, too weak and too wimpy-wise (ph). We've seen it again in this war. There's barely any State Department input or advice.
MYRE: These analysts say there is a Middle East war that offers valuable lessons - the first U.S. war against Iraq back in 1991. The goal was limited - drive out Iraqi troops who'd seized Kuwait. President George H. W. Bush rallied support at the United Nations and built a large international force. Again, Douglas Lute.
LUTE: I count that war as the last time that we really had realistic objectives.
MYRE: He was then an army major in a cavalry unit that took part in the swift, decisive ground campaign.
LUTE: We had admittedly limited objectives - right? - which was to liberate Kuwait. But it was not to take on Baghdad, not to overthrow Saddam, not to replace the Iraqi government.
MYRE: Trump is looking to end the Iran war. Yet Paul Salem thinks that however this conflict concludes, it won't be the final word. The U.S., he says, is capable of striking Iran whenever it wishes. And while Iran will be vulnerable...
SALEM: It is able to inflict a cost on the global economy and, as indirectly, on the U.S. president. I think there will be future, you know, wars and confrontations.
MYRE: And it's still not clear how this one will end.
Greg Myre, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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