Two more Americans have given their lives in the service of their country. They died in an Iranian attack on a Jordanian air base; several more U.S. military personnel were injured and one is missing. The American people have a right to know why they died, and how many more of their sons and daughters President Trump is willing to risk in this war of choice.The president, so far, has issued his usual stock answers. It’s “a very sad thing,” he said in a phone call on Saturday afternoon to the right-wing outlet NewsNation. He added: "We hate to see it happen. It’s in service to our country.” But every military death is in service to the nation. It is true by definition that all 16 Americans who have lost their lives so far in this conflict did so because they volunteered to wear uniforms of the United States military and endure great risks on behalf of their fellow citizens. Military service, even in peacetime, is inherently hazardous.But these Americans are dead because they were sent to war—and for months Trump has offered no comprehensive explanation about why his administration is ordering U.S. military personnel to put their lives on the line. Or, more accurately, he’s offered several rationales at various moments over the past twenty weeks of war.This time, according to NewsNation, Trump said that his central objective in this war is “never allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” But Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and was not even close to obtaining one when Trump launched this conflict. Trump has since claimed that Tehran was “two weeks” from creating a bomb, an assertion no serious analyst—and no intelligence agency, in the U.S. or anywhere else—has supported.The night the war began, however, the White House issued taped remarks by the president in which Trump seemed to have had one overriding war aim: Regime change. He told the Iranian people that “that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” and that when the U.S. campaign was finished, they should “take over” their government. “It will be yours to take,” he said, but as with some of his other declarations, he has since backed off, protesting that he never had any interest in toppling the Iranian regime—or, at other times, claiming he in fact did topple the regime because he killed a lot of Iranian leaders (which is obviously not the same thing as “regime change”). Trump was optimistic about ending the Iranian regime. Encouraged by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the rule of the mullahs would collapse under an American onslaught—claims that CIA Director John Ratcliffe deemed “farcical" and Secretary of State Marco Rubio called “bullshit,” according to The New York Times—Trump sent U.S. forces into harm’s way on what he later called “gut instinct”. (Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for his part, cheered on the idea of an attack.)The Iranian mullahs are among the world’s worst tyrants, and Trump could have made the case for ridding the planet of their rule over a nation of more than 90 million people. But the president has not seen fit, in all this time, to give one address to the American people or to Congress about why he plunged the United States into war, the global economy into chaos, and young Americans into danger.Meanwhile, the goals of the war have frayed and multiplied, with the United States now putting out fires of its own making. Regime change failed, and Iran quickly did what just about everyone except Trump and Hegseth knew they would do: They choked off the Strait of Hormuz and attacked U.S. friends in the Gulf. American aims soon focused on stripping Iran of its military capabilities and opening the Strait. These efforts have also failed.Iran obviously maintains a stock of missiles and drones, and Trump himself has given up on eliminating the missile threat: “I mean, they have to have some,” he said with a shrug when asked about Iran’s missiles last month, “because other people have some.” (One of those missiles is apparently what killed the two American service members in Jordan.) Meanwhile, the Iranians have demonstrated, repeatedly, that the strait is only open when they say it is, a command of the waterway they did not enjoy before Trump started the war. The president, it seems, somehow believes that he can put all of this toothpaste back in the tube with more applications of military force.Now two more Americans are dead, and one is missing. But Trump seems bent on putting more lives at risk. He has again, according to some reports, asked his advisers about seizing Iranian territory, stoking speculation that the United States is readying its forces for ground operations. If Trump were to give those orders, more Americans will die.If U.S. military forces are ordered to seize Iranian territory, they could do it. Such an operation might mean significant casualties; nonetheless, the Americans, if they dedicate enough troops, could occupy Kharg Island and land along the Iranian shoreline. But again, to what end? What does “victory” look like at this point? Even if U.S. forces invade Iran and assert that they control the Strait of Hormuz, these would be short-term operational successes that would leave American soldiers holding patches of ground in an enemy nation. (And no matter what happens, the recovery of the world economy will depend on the world’s shipping companies and insurers, whose owners might not be reassured by Trump’s declarations or Hegseth’s bloviations after a major U.S. ground action in the strait.)But perhaps Trump has no such plans, in which case he is betting yet again—with American lives—that pummeling Iran and making the rubble bounce will get him what he wants. And what he seems to want is a docile Iran that agrees to peace with the United States, opens the strait, stops attacking other nations in the area, and vows never to develop nuclear weapons. Military strikes to attain these goals haven’t worked so far, and Trump has offered no explanation of why he believes that new strikes will work this time. Worse, the Iranians may have lost their supreme leader (only to be replaced by one of his sons) but the regime now seems in a politically and strategically stronger position than they were on the first night of the war.Trump does not seem to comprehend that Iran has a higher pain tolerance than America. Two more deaths are not, as Trump calls them, merely a “very sad thing.” The president led America into a major shooting war. American servicepeople are getting killed and wounded. Trump only yesterday demanded national airtime to rant about electoral conspiracy theories. Before one more member of the U.S. military is killed, he should return to the airwaves—and stand before Congress—to explain what he’s doing in Iran and how many more lives he’s willing to risk.