Historical Lessons: Libya and State Collapse

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On this edition of Parallax Views, returning guest Jon Hoffman, a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute specializing in U.S. Middle East policy and political Islam, joins us to discuss the Trump administration’s risky aerial campaign against Iran—dubbed Operation Epic Fury—and the troubling lack of clarity surrounding the war’s objectives.

In our conversation, Jon and I examine what appears to be a startling degree of thoughtlessness behind this preemptive war. While the U.S. has already killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic itself remains intact, and the broader strategic goalposts seem to shift by the day. Pete Hegseth, the Trump administration’s Pentagon chief, insists this is not a regime-change war, while Donald Trump simultaneously signals that he intends to play a role in determining Iran’s future leadership. The result: mixed signals, strategic ambiguity, and no clear exit strategy or endgame.

At one point in the discussion Jon remarks, “We’ve seen this movie before.” The line captures a central theme of our conversation: the sense that the United States is once again embarking on a war whose consequences are poorly understood and whose goals are constantly shifting. From the quagmire of the Vietnam War to the long and costly interventions in the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan, and the destabilizing aftermath of the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, recent history offers numerous examples of military campaigns launched with confidence but ending in chaos, instability, or strategic failure.

Jon warns that nobody really knows what happens next—and he suspects the administration doesn’t either.

We discuss the many potential consequences of this conflict: a massive refugee crisis, further polarization within the United States, terrorist blowback and radicalization, rising gas prices, and broader regional instability. We also examine how the war was launched without congressional approval and why United States Congress has thus far failed to meaningfully challenge the executive branch’s decision to initiate hostilities.

Along the way we explore troubling precedents already emerging in the prosecution of the war—including the destruction of an Iranian ship in international waters—and how the preemptive nature of the campaign risks reinforcing global perceptions of the United States as a rogue state. We also discuss the role of the Israel lobby, a fossilized foreign policy establishment still obsessed with maintaining U.S. primacy, and the unusual coalition—ranging from libertarians and leftists to Resistance liberals neoconservatives like Bill Kristol—that has emerged in opposition to Trump’s conduct of the war.

Other topics include comparisons between Israel’s war in Gaza and Operation Epic Fury, the shaky legal and moral foundations of the conflict (including Karoline Leavitt’s vibes-based claim that “President Trump felt there was an imminent threat”), the absence of a clear casus belli, and the historical lesson that bombing populations rarely liberates them from authoritarian regimes.

The bottom line? A massive geopolitical gamble has been taken—and no one knows where it leads next.