The Iran war is already controversial, as it has taken a toll on the US economy and was opposed by most Americans from the beginning. President Donald Trump has blood on his hands by waging the Iran war without any seeming purpose, at least according to a Republican who advised the previous GOP president, George W. Bush.
“Two more Americans are dead,” Steve Schmidt, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, wrote on his Substack on Sunday. “That fact stands apart from politics. It can’t be explained away by speeches, obscured by patriotic slogans, or redeemed by presidential bravado. Two American families have entered a fraternity of grief that no one chooses to join. Their loss is permanent. The decisions that led to it demand scrutiny.”
He added, “This is Donald Trump’s war. No one compelled him to widen this conflict. No one forced him to make the judgment that military escalation best served the national interest. Those were presidential decisions. In the American system, the authority to commit military force carries with it the obligation to answer for the consequences. Every commander in chief owns the wars he begins, and every commander in chief owns the burden of explaining why Americans are asked to fight, to bleed and, sometimes, to die.”
Schmidt went on to accuse Trump of waging the war in Iran without any clear mission or plan for victory. As a result, he characterized the loss of American lives as immoral rather than merely tragic.
“The office of the presidency is the greatest public trust ever bestowed by a free people,” Schmidt argued. “It grants one individual the authority to send young Americans into mortal danger. No responsibility in our constitutional system is more profound. None requires greater humility. None permits less vanity.”
He added, “History is unmoved by rhetoric. It asks only a handful of questions. Was the country safer? Was the cause necessary? Were the sacrifices justified? Could wiser judgment have prevented the loss? Those questions aren’t answered at campaign rallies. They’re answered in military cemeteries. They’re answered in rehabilitation wards. They’re answered in the quiet grief of Gold Star families. Two more Americans are dead. The burden of proof belongs to the men who led them into this war.”
Schmidt concluded, “Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have yet to carry it.”
Ever since the Iran war commenced, Schmidt has been one of the most prominent conservative voices denouncing it. For example, in April, he noted that the war is directly responsible for many of the economic problems facing Americans.
“The economy is in free fall — it's in a state of collapse,” Schmidt posted on X at the time. “There are fuel shortages all over the world, and diesel is $7 a gallon. In California, there will be food shortages because fertilizer can't make it through the Strait of Hormuz, and neither can hydrogen or helium, or dozens of other precursor agents that are necessary to sustain the global economy.”
He added, “This is a lost war led by a fool.”
