Welcome to the political scene from the New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics.

I'm Evan Osnose, and I'm joined as ever by my colleagues Susan Glasser and Jane Mayer.

Hi Susan and hi Jane.

Hey there, Evan. Great to be with you.

Great to see you both.

From the instant he entered politics, Donald Trump promised to keep America out of wars of

choice. Regime change, he said, is a proven absolute failure. In his victory speech on election night, 2024, he said,

quote, I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars, unquote. Well, here we are.

Since Saturday, the United States and Israel have launched a major assault on Iran's regime.

The government there is retaliating, so far with missiles and drones fired on Israel

and across the Gulf. As we tape this Tuesday afternoon, what began as a series of strikes is now

widening into a regional war. Susan, Jane, for anyone who's covered these issues as long as

the three of us have, it's really impossible not to be thinking this week about the last time that an American president

started a war in the Middle East. I went into Iraq as a reporter on the first day of that conflict.

And 23 years later, even today, can feel as if we're still living in the ashes of its aftermath, in the

politics that it created. What have you guys been thinking about over the last several days?

Well, you know, Evan, I remember meeting you in Kuwait when we were sitting there waiting

for the invasion of Iraq to unfold. And I think given that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance literally are the political products of

the backlash to that conflict and to this notion of 20 years of forever war and endless war.

And it's really remarkable.

And I think for me, the particular moment in this last extraordinary

hundred hours or so is actually just the very first thing that Donald Trump had to say when he

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