On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan and investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen turned to the ongoing conflict with Iran, with both agreeing the war represents a deep misuse of American military power.
Rogan opened the exchange simply: “How much is this Iran thing freaking you out?”
Jacobsen, whose body of work includes interviews with hundreds of military officials and veterans spanning every American conflict since World War II, did not hesitate.
“When anyone starts a war that’s not necessary,” she said, “it’s just a terrible, terrible, terrible idea.”
She framed the conflict against what the military was originally designed to do, noting that she continues to call it the Department of Defense because, in her view, that is still its purpose. “It’s supposed to be for defense,” Jacobsen said.
Drawing on conversations with veterans who served before and after the war on terror, Jacobsen identified a shift in how service members now view their relationship with the government.
“There’s a completely different perspective on the government from those who were in the wars leading up to the war on terror,” she said. She added that many veterans she has spoken with have come away feeling used, a sentiment she traced back to the Bush-Cheney administration’s decision to start the Iraq War.
“Many of these people are mad. They’re really mad that they were used,” she said. “That is a fundamental warping of what the military is.”
Rogan agreed without reservation. “Yeah, without a doubt. And also no clear way to resolve this at all.”
He raised concerns about the material costs of ongoing operations, noting that stockpiles appear to be running low and that bases have been targeted by drones.
Jacobsen argued the Iran conflict has made the country less secure rather than more.
“The real problem is it makes America an enemy and it makes us less safe,” she said, “because America has done this unprovoked attack and so now they have a reason to attack back.”
She also raised concerns about how media coverage has framed the war almost entirely in financial terms.
“I’ll see a headline that’s like the war in Iran cost us XYZ billion dollars and it’s like it doesn’t even mention all the people dying,” she told Rogan. He agreed the framing was misguided. “It’s just talking about money, which is crazy.”
Jacobsen closed by pointing to a credibility problem she sees building for the United States on the world stage, noting that the dramatic shifts in foreign policy from one administration to the next must appear, from the outside, “really schizophrenic.”
