Why colluding with Israeli aggression is a bad idea.
Many years ago, I participated in a wargame whose primary thesis was – what happens if Israel acts unilaterally and drags us into a war not of our own choosing. Turns out it was prophetic.
The premise of the game was simple. Israel attacked Iran and, in so doing, provoked a response from Iranian missiles. The US came to the aid of Israel with missile defense, but was deploying forces while under fire, which was not what we wanted to do.
In the game, there was an iron-clad rule. US forces would defend Israeli territory, but would not aid or assist Israel in its aggressive strikes. Certainly, the US would not undertake to bomb Iran to service targets that Israel wanted.
I believe that was the right policy choice, and I still believe it would be the right choice here. There is a difference between supporting Israel and enabling Israeli aggression. What Trump is doing is the latter. It’s wrong and should be shut down by Congress immediately.
Let’s look at the facts, shall we?
1) Iran was not weeks from a nuclear weapon. That is an outright lie. There is plenty of independent evidence that supports the statement.
2) Iran’s missiles were not capable of reaching the US, for technical reasons and also for reasons that have to do with geography. (The trajectories were not good for them.) Trump and Hegseth know this. They are lying their fat asses off when they say Iran was going to attack the US. They were not.
3) Rubio came out and admitted that Israel provoked this conflict by making it clear they were going to attack Israel. Rather than talk Netanyahu off the ledge, they gave him a blank check to do exactly what he wanted.
None of this is good for the United States.
The results, too, were prophetic. Iran’s regime did not cave in, even when it suffered military setbacks and the IDF showed its own intransigence far out of alignment with its size or position in the world.
There was one specific difference between then and now. The United States did not choose to actively enable Israeli aggression, yet still supported Israel’s defense of its own territory ( It’s also worth noting that many years ago, Syria had not collapsed, and Lebanon was far different than the cripple it is now). But the key thing that mattered was we acted responsibly as a nation, vis-à-vis not enabling things that were and are incredibly reckless and stupid.
Of course, we actually had a President then instead of a worthless, corrupt, and treasonous gasbag. Furthermore, it’s painfully obvious that Trump and co. had no plan beyond bombing Iran, killing its current leaders, and hoping that something good would happen. They are truly worthless people who deserve the worst that can befall them.
We had no business colluding with Netanyahu and his sick twisted vision for Israel. And in so doing, we have yet again betrayed US national interests and principles. And contrary to what sick, evangelicals believe, we are not obligated to defend Israel by treaty.
There is a difference between “support” and “enabling” – and the US is stupidly doing the latter. Israel collects tens of billions of dollars in American subsidies, constantly meddles in American politics and steals American secrets, treats the American military as its personal plaything, demands (and receives) free use of the American veto on the U.N. Security Council, so that it can contemptuously ignore U.N. resolutions to halt its illegal annexations of Palestinian land. In return, America gets … its international reputation severely tarnished by the resulting association.
Pick your foreign relations school of thought: hard-nosed realpolitik, liberal internationalism, socialist humanitarianism, or straight-up brute selfishness; this “alliance” makes no sense.
And this war was not a defensive measure; there was no imminent threat, and American lives and treasure are being squandered for nothing, save enabling a corrupt state that is no longer aligned with American interests.