It is not “hawkish” to point out that the Iran war was a counterproductive disaster

I can’t believe we’re doing this, but some people are again rushing to concern troll Democrats who are allegedly criticizing Trump the wrong way and suggesting that they should be giving him credit for ending his catastrophic war. To state what really should be obvious:

• It’s not “pro-war” to point out that the deal Trump signed is a negative-sum deal that leaves the US worse off than had it not gone to war at all. Saying this does not in any way imply that the war should continue.
• Elected national Democrats almost uniformly opposed the war and don’t want it to continue, and they deserve credit for that, not bad faith rhetoric policing.
• The incentives created by this argument are in fact perverse. Implying that it’s “pro-war” to criticize Trump for agreeing to a terrible resolution just puts him in a “heads I win, tails you lose” situation. If you don’t want more stupid wars make sure Trump pays a political price for this one. Giving presidents credit for stopping idiotic unprovoked wars of choice they started incentivizes them do to it again.
• Many people engaging in “Democrats are letting Trump occupy the anti-war lane” concern trolling are of course just anti-anti-Trump or pro-Trump depending on where they fall on the Quincy Institute Own the Libs spectrum. But for people making this argument who are genuinely anti-Trump, I would say that if you don’t want Trump to be falsely perceived as anti-war, the best strategy is to use you platform to point out that Trump is in fact an unhinged bloodthirsty warmonger and anyone who says differently is lying. You can just do this! You don’t need any Democratic politician to say any particular combination of magic words to do this! When you don’t do this, you are feeding into the false perception that Trump is the Peace President whether that’s your intention or not.