President Trump launched a second round of strikes against Iran in 48 hours Tuesday, hitting IRGC targets near the Strait of Hormuz and warning Tehran that further retaliation will bring an even bigger response — up to and including the destruction of the Islamic Republic itself. Ordinary Americans are footing the bill for another Middle Eastern escalation with no defined objective, no cost accounting, and no exit strategy.

This matters because we've seen this movie before. The U.S. military is now engaged in sustained combat operations against a sovereign nation, the president is threatening regime-ending strikes, and the only thing Washington can agree on is that the American people don't deserve a debate about whether this serves their interests.

Trump justified the strikes as retaliation for Iran's "failed attempt at adding sea mines" to the Strait of Hormuz and for launching eight missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan, according to his Truth Social post. All eight missiles were intercepted, the president noted. CENTCOM confirmed the strikes targeted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which oversees the Strait.

The president's rhetoric escalated fast. "If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!" Trump wrote. He told Fox News' Trey Yingst that peace negotiations were dead: "I think an agreement with them isn't worth the paper it's written on."

The New York Post framed the strikes as a necessary battle for the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting Iranian threats including a reported bounty on Barron Trump's head and Iran blacklisting 45 tankers. The Post buried the civilian casualty reports at the bottom: Iranian Red Crescent and VP Zahra Behrouz-Azar said a strike hit a wedding near Sirik, killing four people including a child and wounding more than 50. CENTCOM spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins told the Post: "The US military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC." Fox News focused on Iran's economic collapse, quoting FDD's Miad Maleki saying Iran's economy is "on the verge of collapse" and noting Treasury Secretary Bessent is rolling out weekly secondary sanctions. Al-Monitor kept its reporting to the bare facts of Trump's statements.

Here's what none of them asked: What's the endgame? Trump declared Iran a "Failed Nation" that is "DEAD" — yet we're bombing it again. If the regime is already broken, what does "victory" look like? How many more strikes, how many more billions, how many more deployed troops before Washington declares the job done? The founders warned that standing armies and foreign entanglements would consume the republic's wealth and liberty. They weren't wrong.

Iran's economy is cratering — official inflation at 66%, exports down 35%, the IMF projecting 5.4% contraction. Tehran is feeling the pressure. But feeling the pressure and surrendering are different things, and the IRGC was still launching attacks at U.S. Marine barracks even after the strikes. Economic strangulation without a political off-ramp is just siege warfare with extra steps.

The American people were told the original strikes were defensive. Now we're two strikes in 48 hours deep, the president is talking about destroying the Iranian regime, and nobody in either party is asking what this costs — in treasure, in credibility, in the risk of a regional war that pulls in every power from Moscow to Beijing.

The Strait of Hormuz matters for oil. Everyone understands that. But defending commercial shipping lanes is a far cry from threatening to vaporize a nation of 88 million people. Somewhere between those two objectives lies a policy — and right now, nobody in Washington can name it.