We need to talk to people before we go to war with them, especially Iran.

We rushed in to the Iraq war. The Bush administration made hundreds of statements they knew to be false in order to convince the world that war with Iraq was necessary, according to a joint study by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism. In fact, if we had been truly diplomatic with Iraq, there would have been nothing to talk about, because we wanted them to cease activities like chemical or nuclear weapons programs — programs we now know were shut down at least by the late-1990s.

Once we go to war, we can’t go back. Real people die in war: More than 3,000 American troops are dead due to hostile action, and an estimated 81,000 to 88,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, according to iraqbodycount.org. The Iraqis were people living their lives under a brutal dictator before, but at least they were alive. Their loss may be a means to an end, but it would be nice if we could feel more certain that there was no other option, that we didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.

In a country like Iran, diplomacy is clearly worth trying. Relations were cut off between our countries in 1980, and we haven’t spoken diplomatically since. Don’t get me wrong here; there is a long history between the United States and Iran, and I am no foreign policy historian, but designating a country as part of an Axis of Evil is far too simplistic.

Though the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is no saint, everyone living in the United States for the past 20 years should know that it’s an assumption to say everyone in a country supports its president. And as recently as the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Iran agreed to help American airmen who crashed in its country. They have also arrested and deported more than 500 members of Al Qaeda who were within its borders, and let’s not forget Iranians were burning candles, not flags, after Sept. 11. They are not some group of zealots hell-bent on our destruction.

This column may not seem timely now, but it’s something we need to be thinking about sooner rather than later. In January, several Iranian boats allegedly charged toward three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and the United States accused Iran of trying to provoke an attack. I am not saying this incident was fabricated, but the United States has a long history of going to war over misleading boat attacks, such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. This latest claim could be the beginnings of a new armed conflict.

The decision to go to war can’t be an enviable one to make. In a situation where American lives are really at risk, like the Cuban missile crisis, it couldn’t have been easy to decide how long to wait before taking action. Had President Kennedy not exhibited patience, we could be living in a post-nuclear world. It would be ignorant to say that war should never be an option. But coming from a country where you don’t even need to physically harm someone to be charged with assault, it’s surprising to learn about how eager we seem to resort to violence when it comes to our foreign policy.