War is the American temptation, the one every president since the end of World War II has faced.

When you command the mightiest military on Earth — the loss of warrior ethos was always just political posturing — it’s hard not to see it as a tool toward achieving some goal.

Peace in our time. Making the world safe for democracy. Preventing an attack on American soil.

The objectives seem noble at the start. But the consequences, oh the consequences, are always more than we expect.

George W. Bush struck back in Afghanistan, going after al-Qaida and its Taliban allies for the attacks on Sept. 11.

Then came Iraq, a misconceived war based on the false claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed,” Bush said after landing in a stunt aboard an aircraft carrier.

President Barack Obama authorized combat patrols over Libya to prevent dictator Moammar Gadhafi from defeating the rebels who would eventually kill him.

Obama failed to pull us out of Bush’s wars and left Donald Trump to negotiate a flawed peace and his vice president, Joe Biden, to oversee the deadly, final withdrawal.

And now, Trump’s war.

He announced on social media Saturday night that U.S. forces bombed nuclear facilities and that all the planes were returning to their bases.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.

“Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

What will be the consequences this time?

“Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” the president said at a 10 p.m. address Saturday to the nation. “If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and easier.”

I’m an American. I’m a journalist, and so I’m supposed to be detached. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care if our country wins now that another war has started.

I want it to be mercifully short, achieving the goals and perhaps changing the bloody calculus of more than a century in the region. As much as I oppose Trump’s needless cruelty, I hope he can pull off something big.

I fear it will be a long, costly misadventure.

It’s been obvious for days that this was coming.

Refueling jets stage across the Atlantic. Israel and Iran trade salvos for more than a week.

Trump demands Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” then announces “we” have control of the country’s skies. We.

Then the feint, saying it would be two weeks before he decided.

This is an American reality. We attack things in our way. We bomb the obstacle, obliterate the adversary.

Our nation was born in war, and we have shown ourselves to be warlike people again and again. Some have been just fights; others have not.

Once, presidents went to Congress to seek the power to wage war, or at least to explain what happened.

Trump promised he would be different. He scuttled the nuclear proliferation deal Obama negotiated and then tried to carve out his own. He campaigned on a pledge to stop the endless wars of this century.

The vast majority of Americans will never serve in the military, and most will support Trump’s decision or remain silent until the men and women in uniform are safe.

This was the sentiment my high school tried to instill in me.

I graduated from Stephen Decatur High School on the Eastern Shore, where an oval portrait of the 19th century naval hero hung on the cafeteria wall with his infamous toast from 1816 printed below.

“Our country!” he said. “In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!”

It seemed like an unreasonably ambitious idea even to my 16-year-old self, getting teenagers of the post-Vietnam era to see that kind of patriotic zeal as aspirational.

As spoken, it is patriotic bravura without nuance.

But there is a different way to look at Decatur’s toast. Not jingoism, even if that’s what he intended, but as a reminder that our actions will always have consequences.

Whether the United States is right or wrong, we all own what follows.

During the 20 years of war that followed Sept. 11, I worked at newspapers in Anne Arundel County. Every Memorial Day, I published a list.

It included the names of local soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines killed in Middle East combat zones, their dates of death and brief summary of their sacrifice. Year by year it grew.

The first was a kid from Pasadena who signed up for the Marines the day after he graduated from high school. He was killed by friendly fire in Iraq. His mother refused his posthumous promotion and moved to the Eastern Shore.

The last was a Navy cryptologist killed by a roadside bomb in Syria, sent out for another tour while she waited for paperwork to pursue an advanced degree.

Her husband moved to Washington state and began flirting with neo-Nazis in a run for Congress. Now he’s Trump’s nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center.

It was not intended as patriotic. It was intended as a reminder that actions have consequences.

Today, as we enter another war, seeing that list as finished seems horribly naive.

Because war is the great temptation.

And Donald Trump, being who he is, couldn’t resist.