On War #2: More than 150 years have passed since the United States fought a war on its own soil and fully faced its destructive savagery. That of course was the Civil War, which pitted Americans against Americans. Since then, it has been involved in half-a-dozen major conflicts, but none lapped over onto U.S. territory. There were hideous surprise attacks, one at Pearl Harbor and the second in New York City and Washington. Both lasted only hours, though the death tolls were high. Otherwise, the hundreds of thousands of American casualties came “over there.” Americans as a result have no notion of what domestic combat is like. They have no bombed-out Detroit or Los Angeles to recollect. No occupying troops have patrolled its landscape. What has happened in Gaza since 2023 and what is happening in Iran now are psychologically unfathomable. Americans care only that they not lose soldiers or aviators, and leaders oblige them by doing their destruction from the air. But there are souls beneath these warplanes, and many, whether they liked or disliked the Islamic regime, will struggle to forget and forgive what is being billed by some as a “liberation.” Parts of Tehran are in flames. People of all stripes are dying. Perhaps one sad day in the future, America will come to understand what it means to be exposed to relentless bombing. For now, however, Iran is merely some godawful place that needed to learn a lesson, as Americans more than 5,000 miles away make their spring plans. All’s fair in love and war, goes the saying. If only that were true.