In addition to risking American lives, the war in Iran reportedly has cost the United States about $2 billion each day. That is an enormous sum at a time when many of our cities are struggling with homelessness, which affects many veterans who once served this country.
I supported President Donald Trump because he promised to pursue peace and avoid new wars. Many voters like me are now questioning whether that promise is being fulfilled.
As tensions with Iran escalate, there is a real fear that frustration and outside pressures could push the situation toward catastrophe. History has shown us the terrible consequences that may result.
Our leaders must choose diplomacy and restraint over escalation. The world cannot afford another tragedy of that magnitude.
Stop this escalation now before it is too late.
— Sami Uddin, Bolingbrook
Struggle in calling it a war
Regarding the New York Times article by Annie Karni printed in the Tribune (“Republicans won’t say uncle on ‘war,’” March 7): Karni notes that many Republicans have trouble calling the conflict in Iran a war. What did they call the conflict in Korea that lasted three years and cost tens of thousands of lives? I believe that was called a police action. Or how about Vietnam? It lasted 20 years and cost 58,000 American lives.
Neither one was a declared war; the Korean War started during a Democratic administration.
If this conflict in Iran lasts as long as Vietnam, then you can call it a forever war.
— Loren Monsess, Waterman, Illinois
This is a religious war
The president’s prediction of an early end to his war on Iran may be encouraging to some. Even if Iran were to surrender unconditionally, this would amount only to a government’s surrender. To think the victims of this war would forswear any current or future warring with Donald Trump’s America would be wishful thinking indeed.
This is a religious war and nothing less. We elected a man who has thrived on falsehoods, who feeds on falsehoods and who will lead us at best into a false peace.
— Bob Quitter, Plainfield
Why Trump went to war
I agree with retired Judge F. Keith Brown (“No substitute for evidence,” March 8) that the Constitution assigns to Congress the power to declare war. But undertaking a debate to persuade a majority of Congress and the public to approve military action, while arguably desirable, is utterly impractical in modern times.
The decision by President Donald Trump to attack Iran was not made carelessly or impulsively. President Barack Obama attempted to discourage Iran from developing nuclear weapons by signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a treaty that he failed to submit to the Senate for ratification because he knew it would not pass. President Joe Biden attempted to appease Iran by relaxing sanctions, another ploy that failed.
Before our nation resorts to “sustained military action,” Brown asks for “a clear articulation of objectives” and “factual basis for urgency.” Trump has stated his objective repeatedly as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. That seems pretty clear to me.
As for a “factual basis for urgency,” Iran had 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% before the U.S. bombing in June. With further enrichment, that would be sufficient to build several nuclear weapons. Urgent indeed.
Trump’s conditions for avoiding war were simple: Stop enriching uranium and stop trying to build nuclear weapons. He offered to give Iran uranium fuel for power generation and to relax economic sanctions in return. Iran refused.
The Constitution was ratified in 1788. At that time, a warship required about 30 days to sail across the Atlantic Ocean and be in position to lob a few cannonballs at Boston or Philadelphia, possibly killing a few colonists. In 2026, a ballistic missile launched from Russia (or Iran) can reach anywhere in the continental United States within 30 minutes. If carrying a nuclear weapon, it could easily kill a million people.
If Iran succeeds in developing such a weapon, it would undoubtedly use the weapon on Israel. Full-blown nuclear world war would ensue, probably within hours.
— James Berry, La Grange
Late-life change of heart
In 1974, the year Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, you could drop a tennis ball in either chamber of Congress, and it would likely bounce off a sensible, astute member from either political party. Constitutional law might have been argued, but both sides took their turn in vigorous but orderly debate. In the end, our Constitution prevailed.
Today, you often hear the term “guardrails,” those imaginary barriers that used to keep branches of government separate and agencies such as the Federal Reserve independent. Those debates were largely unnecessary because our leaders’ sense of honor served as our guardrails. Our Constitution provided us with a hard copy of the rules, but we were all on the same page. There was no foreseeable impediment to our messy but functional republic. Honor, we assumed, was an automatic byproduct of being elected to public office. Who knew?
Imagine that the American electorate is composed of roughly 50% George Wallace clones, with their enablers filling out the rest of the conservative right. Assume that same percentage for Congress. That, more or less, is today’s America.
Wallace, a segregationist, served four terms as Alabama’s governor between 1963 and 1987, running interestingly as a Democrat. His populist views on smaller federal government and crime later influenced Ronald Reagan followers. But Wallace had second thoughts.
In the late 1970s, Wallace renounced his former segregationist views and apologized for his past actions.
Lee Atwater, a negative campaigning firebrand for President George H.W. Bush, did the same in 1991 after a brain cancer diagnosis.
I’m hoping that by 2028, conservatives will read the whole history on Wallace and Atwater, including their late-life change of heart. Maybe a spanking in this fall’s midterms will get their attention.
— Jim Newton, Itasca
Trump’s choice of a cap
In 2024, Donald Trump sold Bibles. Unfortunately, he did not read the parable about a guest who wore improper clothing to the king’s wedding. When the man could offer no excuse for not wearing appropriate attire, the king instructed his servants to tie the man up and “cast him into the outer darkness” (Matthew 22:11).
If Trump had read the Bible, he would have realized that it was totally inappropriate to wear a baseball cap to the solemn ceremony honoring the six U.S. soldiers killed in the Iran conflict.
In the olden days, he would have been escorted out.
— Mary Ann Kehl, Wilmette
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