In the lead-up to the Iraq war back in January 2003, I suggested that the motive was less about attacking al-Qaida and more about George W. Bush wanting Saddam Hussein’s head on a stick. Now, with more than 3,000 dead Americans and 10 times that wounded, one might wish that, as in days of yore, kings and ruling families took to the field and fought their own battles. While the Bush incentive to attack Iraq may have started as a simple family feud, it opened the door to ardent sponsors for sending U.S. forces into the region.

One may wish that Bush had waited for U.S. special ops teams to find Saddam (as they ultimately did). Remember the night the cruise missiles were launched, the CNN camera fixed on a central Baghdad square, with convoys of taxis speeding to and fro? My guess is it was Saddam, his sons and top brass, in those taxis taking evasive action. Had the occupation forces not driven him to ground, our special ops intel teams may have collared him with minimum cost (what’s a few pounds of $100 bills) using Shiite agents and a grid of taxi-tracking transponders. Thus the Bush family might have settled the score for that car bomb plot to assassinate George H.W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait in 1993, which was pinned on Iraqi intelligence.

Now comes the drumbeat to war with Iran. Picture this: We armed Taliban terrorists with missiles to down Russian aircraft in Afghanistan; Russia arms Iran with missiles reportedly capable of destroying multiple incoming targets; we deploy Patriot missiles to Poland “to defend against Iranian missiles?” — a dicey provocation yet an almost comic insult to advanced Russian missile technology; China demonstrates shooting down satellites like sitting ducks, and Russia probably has as good or better anti-satellite systems; our battle groups deploy to the Middle East “to add teeth to the confrontation with Iran,” while Israel reportedly practices to use atomic bunker-busters on underground Iranian nuclear facilities and Russia claims weaponry not only to destroy but to turn around incoming missiles. Easy enough to picture an array of supersonic missiles speeding up the exhaust plumes of lumbering cruise missiles – but reversing a track back to its source? Not a comfortable thought.

During the Korean War I enlisted and served two years active duty in the Air Defense Command, six years as reserve in the Air Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam conflict, and four 18-month volunteer hazardous duty tours in Southeast Asia as a CIA civilian – even though the agency was not in full favor of the war. I laud and honor our brave soldiers, and often join other Mainers welcoming the troops transiting Bangor International Airport. I am fiercely proud of my stepson, a squad leader with the 10th Mountain Infantry, one of the Maine Guardsmen who volunteered for a second tour in Iraq.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, I’ve volunteered to go anywhere I have language-area expertise to seek out terrorist cadre. That being said, and for what it is worth, I would close this commentary with an observation on current events, simplistic and naive as it may be.

U.S. historians a century from now, if there are any, will ponder the puzzle of U.S. post-World War II foreign policy. From the Baltic to the Balkans, old allies attacked, old enemies sponsored, in what on the surface resembles a clearly defined anti-Slavic policy. With communist world domination no longer an issue, one can yet witness in the news and entertainment media a Russophobic revival not seen since the 1960s. Example: With no solid evidence there is the full-court media press (TV news, shows, books, and soon a movie) to condemn Putin and Russia for the polonium-210 poisoning of a low-level KGB-FSB defector in London, when too many facts point to a possible WMD smuggling operation, coupled with Caucasian and covert multinational threads worthy of a Le Carre novel.

The ethnic feuding across the Caucasus and Middle East is frightful enough, yet what may have started in Iraq as a hapless vendetta has the prospect of ending as the mother of all feuds.

Richard Gay of Blue Hill is a former member of the Central Intelligence Agency.