CNN —Twenty years ago this month, I was a young Marine lieutenant marching down a California street in an Iraq War victory parade. It was the right decision to kill insurgents without losing more Marines, but leveling a school doesn’t win you a lot of hearts and minds. To be sure, there are some fundamental differences between Israel’s war with Hamas and America’s war in Iraq. Our First Marine Division motto in Iraq, under General Mattis, was “no better friend, no worse enemy.” I want Hamas to know no greater enemy than the Israeli Army, and I want to see every Hamas fighter defeated. There are a lot of peace-loving Palestinians in Gaza who loathe Hamas, but it’s up to the Israeli Army to prove themselves better friends.

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Persons: Seth Moulton, Read, CNN —, Saddam Hussein, Seth Moulton Seth Moulton, David Petraeus, “, ”, Petraeus, Israel, Ahmad Hasaballah, Stan McChrystal, let’s, they’ve, hasn’t, Benjamin Netanyahu, General Mattis, Israel can’t, ” — Organizations: Democrat, Marine Corps, Massachusetts, Congressional District, CNN, Iraqi Army, Army Special Forces, Marines, Getty, Israeli Army, First, Hamas Locations: California, Iraq, Israel, Gaza, America, Afghanistan, Iraqi, Najaf