I found so little I agreed with Charlie Kirk about that I’m reluctant to mention him or point to anything he said. Kirk held a perspective that ran counter to mine, but he had something to say, whether I disagreed with it him or not.

He was right about one thing, though: America ought not be meddling in the affairs of other countries.

In a post on X, Kirk tweeted: This is insane. Regime change will result in a bloody civil war, killing hundreds of thousands and creating another massive Muslim refugee crisis. Topping a leader is NEVER as easy you think. It almost always results in further involvement, a civil war, and chaos. Resist this!

Yes, we ought to resist this—the unseemly task of nation-building. We’ve opened America to act after act of it. We’re doing so in Venezuela, and we have no clue as to how that’ll shake out. I can say the same about Iran.

Will it become our 2026 version of Vietnam?

The United State spent about 25 years in Southeast Asia. It sent young men there to fight a war for what: to stop the spread of communism? In hindsight, our involvement stopped nothing. It left us with this horrific scorecard: dead, 58,220; wounded, 153,000; cost, $168 billion.

All wars carry a cost—human and financial. The men we lost brought hardships to families; the billions spent led to lost opportunities for making America better. Indeed, “insane” would be a good way of describing our involvement in Vietnam.

Now, I think the word is worth dusting off and using it. Bombing Iran and killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, its supreme leader, without support from our NATO allies created another battlefield to flux our military muscle.

For a president who said peace was his calling card, he proved how undeserving he was of a Nobel Peace Prize. With the cost of living a priority among Blacks, Hispanics and whites, war was not the answer; it exacerbated people’s economic hardships.

I find it difficult to see Americans in harm’s way for an unnecessary war. Already, a handful of our soldiers are coming home soon in body bags. More of them will follow in the days ahead.

War is a butt-ugly business; it’s also a costly business. Regime-change makes war worst, as Kirk pointed out on his X post. Did America have to walk down a road built on insanity? Kirk didn’t think so; never do I.

As I think about the bombing of Tehran, I’m reminded of a scene from the movie “Network,” a forward-looking portrait/docudrama of America. The signature moment in the film came when news anchor asked his viewers to repeat this phrase: I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.

I don’t think we’re that “mad as hell” yet. More than anything, we’re confused. We don’t understand the attack on Tehran; we don’t understand war there or anywhere; and we don’t understand our governance and what its objectives are.

In my mind, going to war in Iran is maddening, even if nobody else I know has reached that level of frustration. They will soon. They’ll be reminded of the cost of war over diplomacy—in money and in lives.

Once they get there, regardless of their politics, they’ll echo Kirk’s view: Resist this!