The "blood on his hands" metaphor

Andrew Lee Butters provides a helpful analysis of how uncritically the phrase "blood on his hands" is tossed around in American politics - when used for Evil Foreign Enemies, of course (A guide to navigating the Trump-Iran story Columbia Journalism Review 01/09/2020):

Killing and, metaphorically speaking, getting blood on their hands, is what soldiers devote their professional lives to. Since 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq, Iran and the US have been engaged in a proxy cold war, and there has been ample opportunity for Suleimani to get his hands wet. ...

The main American charge against him is that under his command Iran flooded Iraq with powerful explosives capable of penetrating armored vehicles and, when deployed by Iraqi anti-American Shiite militias, killed hundreds and wounded thousands of American soldiers. As a correspondent for Time magazine in Baghdad in 2004, I survived a roadside bombing while traveling in a Humvee with American army engineers through a Shiite neighborhood. It could very well have been the downstream result of a Suleimani operation. (As we were aware then, though it often gets forgotten: Suleimani, and the Islamic Republic, represent the Shia part of the Islamic faith. It is distinct from, and sometimes stands in opposition to, Sunni Islam, from which extremist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS spring.) [my emphasis]

The point here is that however valid moral issues are - "blood on his hands" - foreign policy and especially decisions about war and peace need to be based on realistic assessments of situations and rational, sensible understandings of national interest - not only of one's own countries' interests, but those of others, as well.

And for professional warmongers - yes, Virginia, there are such people - promoting moralistic propaganda slogans is as normal as breathing.

The [2003] invasion of Iraq [during the Cheney-Bush Administration] is now widely seen as a disaster, resulting in hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. But few in the US political and media mainstream would describe former President George W. Bush, who started that war, or the American generals who waged it, as having “blood on their hands.” Nor would it be said of successive American administrations that have collaborated on covert operations in Iraq with the Mojahedin-e Khalq [MEK], a cult-like anti-Islamic Republic terror organization in Iran responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths. [my emphasis]

This is not to say that moral and legal judgments have no place in foreign policy. On the contrary. It's especially important to keep in mind the war is incredibly destructive and kills people who are no more good nor bad than the people doing the killing. People who cynically promote war for profit or personal advantage or promote war as some kind of patriotic sacrament are doing something deeply immoral.

Which is why responsible people keep a good grip on reality when it comes to war. Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo are not such responsible people.