Ross Douthat sees a basic continuity running from our previous Middle East excursions to Iran. In many respects, he is right. How does Iran stack up against Iraq and Libya?
Iraq was a war of choice designed to create regime change that was dishonestly sold to the American public as a war to stop a nuclear weapons program. George W. Bush threw enormous resources, including ground troops, into the war to guarantee that the desired regime change would occur. It did, but the Iraqi public fought back, and the new regime was predictably closer to Iran than the US. It was a massive strategic blunder.
In Libya, a tyrannical regime threatened to wipe out an armed resistance. Obama provided air support to the resistance in an effort to create regime change. He succeeded, but the result was civil war and anarchy that continues to this day. It is debatable whether the intervention was worth it.
Like Iraq, the Iran war is an attempt at regime change that is being sold primarily as a campaign to stop an Iranian bomb. Unlike Iraq, the war has been given inadequate resources to bring about regime change, and it has failed. Like Libya, this war is being fought from the air. Unlike Libya, there is no Iranian resistance that can bring about regime change.
In short, what we have now is an unsuccessful and more expensive Libya campaign that is having negative spillover effects all over the world.