Some veterans who went to war in the Middle East at the turn of the century are questioning whether the U.S. has a clear “end state” following operations against Iran. Others say it’s a long time coming — reprisals for the role the Iranian regime has played in supporting and arming proxies that have attacked and killed American service members in the Middle East.
President Donald Trump said on Monday that combat operations in Iran, which began on Saturday, could last about a month, but he did not give a specific timeline for when they might conclude.
“We projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that,” Trump said at the White House while awarding three soldiers Medals of Honor. The recent operation, titled Epic Fury, follows another joint bombing campaign with Israel, which attempted to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities back in June.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said there were no American troops on the ground in Iran and would not elaborate on what the U.S. “will or will not do.”
“President Trump ensures that our enemies understand we’ll go as far as we need to go to advance American interests,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing with reporters Monday morning. “We’re not dumb about it. You don’t have to roll 200,000 people in there and stay for 20 years.”
Currently, U.S. military operations against Iran have been limited to air and missile strikes, without the heavy presence of ground troops that came to define both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. However, as of Monday morning, six American service members had been killed, and others wounded.
At the height of the two wars, about 170,000 American troops were deployed to Iraq and roughly 100,000 surged to Afghanistan in an attempt to quell insurgencies in both countries.
Veterans who fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are “split” and have “mixed emotions” over the current operations, said Alex Plitsas, a former Army staff sergeant who deployed to Iraq in 2008. While Global War on Terror veterans look at another potential war as a reminder of the friends and colleagues they lost over the last two decades, many also acknowledge the role Iran played behind the scenes.
“Even if there was a noble mission to seek justice for 9/11 in Afghanistan, the protracted conflict afterwards with mission creep or the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the subsequent loss of lives and destruction has caused a lot of moral injury and PTSD amongst the veterans’ community,” Plitsas told Task & Purpose. “But at the same time, Iran again has been a party to this conflict over the last 25 years, albeit in the background, providing lethal aid and support to a number of non-state actors who were engaged in fighting against the United States and responsible for hundreds of U.S. deaths.”
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Two Republican members of Congress who are veterans of those wars said Iran was finally being held accountable.
“The world’s number one sponsor of terror is finally being held accountable after 47 years,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a former Navy SEAL, wrote in a post on X. “None of this will be easy or comfortable. If we are going to do this, total victory must be our only option.”
Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), an Air Force veteran who served as a combat pilot and squadron commander, said the operations come after decades of Iran “fueling” proxy groups like the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas, which have carried out attacks against Americans and U.S. troops.
“I’ve flown combat missions against the very terrorists funded and directed by the Iranian regime, and I’ve seen firsthand the threat Iran poses. This moment has been coming for the ayatollahs,” Pflueger said in a press release.
However, Marine veteran Peter Lucier, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012, said he is concerned that the operations against Iran could — once again — last much longer than anticipated by U.S. war planners. Although the U.S. and Israeli strikes appear to have decapitated the Iranian regime’s leadership, it is unclear what will come next, Lucier told Task & Purpose.
“We’ve been promised quick wars before,” Lucier said. “If there’s anything that we’ve learned in the last 20 years, it’s that these things have an incredibly long tail, and so we’ve engaged in what could end up being a 20-year mission.”
An ‘open-ended conflict’ without Congressional justification
Some veterans have questioned whether there was justification for a military campaign, especially without an official sign-off from Congress.
Lucier said he is frustrated that this is the latest conflict that has been waged without Congress declaring war, noting that the 2001 authorization for use of military force passed by lawmakers in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks has been used by Presidents of both parties, for several missions unrelated to its original purpose, including the U.S. military-led campaign against the Islamic State group, or ISIS, which began in 2014 under President Barack Obama.
In a Feb. 28 statement, American Legion National Commander Dan Wiley called on federal lawmakers to fulfill their “constitutional responsibility” and ensure the U.S. military has “clear objectives, strong force protection, and a strategy to prevent prolonged conflict.”
Trump’s decision to order military operations against Iran drew criticism from some Global War on Terrorism veterans now serving in Congress, including Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). A Marine infantry veteran, Gallego served with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, which lost 22 Marines and one Navy corpsman during its deployment to Iraq in 2005.
“I watched my brothers die in Iraq for a mission that was never clearly justified to the American people, and I came home carrying the weight of that,” Gallego said in a statement to Task & Purpose. “We can support freedom and security abroad without sending another generation of young Americans into a forever war. President Trump promised to focus on affordability for the American people, but instead, he’s dragged us into another open-ended conflict.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a retired lieutenant colonel and Army helicopter pilot, criticized Trump for “threatening to draw us into yet another expensive, taxpayer-funded forever war without Constitutionally-required authorization, a defined end-state or a real plan to prevent the instability that could come next.”
Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative veterans group, urged the Trump administration to prioritize American interests and follow the checks and balances set by the Constitution.
“America has sacrificed enormously in the Middle East over the past two decades. If force is used, it must be tied to a strategy that protects American service members, advances our core national interests, and avoids another open-ended conflict,” CVA Executive Director John Vick said in a statement. “Founding Fathers left the role of going to war in the hands of Congress, to ensure the American people had a voice in matters of foreign policy: It is essential the elected leaders in Washington debate and vote on these actions in line with the Constitution.”
