Maryland Gov. Wes Moore warned Sunday that the United States is “very dangerously lurching into another forever war” in Iran.
The 47-year-old Democrat drew on his own military experience as a combat veteran to argue that the Trump administration has failed to articulate what victory looks like or how to achieve it.
“This is a forever war that is very similar to the one that I fought in,” Mr. Moore said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I led soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. And I know that the United States was in Afghanistan for 20 years, that it cost this country over two and a half trillion dollars, that we lost over 2,400 American lives.”
“And we did it because we said we wanted to change the Taliban — and 20 years later, you know who’s in charge of Afghanistan? The Taliban,” he said.
Mr. Moore said the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran shares troubling similarities with that experience. He said no one in the White House has explained to the American people what the mission is or what success requires.
“The president of the United States and the commander in chief has still yet to articulate what exactly it is that we are doing,” he said.
Mr. Moore also tied the war directly to the economic pressures facing American families, citing rising gas and energy costs as consequences of the conflict. He said his own mother’s energy bill had nearly quadrupled over the past year and argued that the most effective way to bring prices down is not a gas tax holiday but to end the military campaign.
“The best thing that we could do to be able to address gas prices is to stop fighting foreign wars,” Mr. Moore said.
The comments amount to a broadside against President Trump, who Mr. Moore argued has broken each of the three central promises of his 2024 campaign: bringing prices down, releasing the Epstein files and keeping the United States out of foreign wars.
“It’s strike one, strike two, strike three,” Mr. Moore said. “On each and every one of those things that he promised, he did not make happen.”
Mr. Moore, who is considered a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, also criticized the administration for launching the Iran campaign while simultaneously dismantling American soft power through cuts to U.S. Agency for International Development and leaving the Department of Homeland Security partially shut down.
“This is the frankly just foolishness in the way that we’re approaching issues of war and peace,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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