Has this war become a matter of saving face for the U.S. or for President Donald Trump? Was it launched for an actual strategic or moral purpose?
The U.S. entered the war in Iraq with “shock and awe” from the air, then made the fatal error of putting troops on the ground. Some are still there. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan, and 20 years later, gave up and retreated in humiliation after wasting much treasure and blood. The U.S. entered the Vietnam conflict, we now know, as early as the 1950s. The Pentagon Papers showed that our leaders concealed what they knew from the beginning: the war was unwinnable. Still, we kept sending our troops to their deaths until finally retreating in humiliation.
Once again we find ourselves at the stage of shock, awe, and oh, they are not surrendering. So consider this solution: withdraw now before creating another slaughterhouse like Vietnam. Why sacrifice young men and women in uniform, not to mention potentially millions of Iranians, in another asymmetrical war that may well end in the greatest humiliation in U.S. history? Most Americans have little love for the regime that has dominated Iran since the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah’s brutal monarchy, but more and more people around the world are concluding that both the U.S. and Israel are unhinged bullies. Letting Iran have security and autonomy is the only way to open the Straits of Hormuz. Cooperate, integrate, and let the soft power of democracy, science, rock and roll, and Hollywood erode the hard edges Iran has developed through its traumatic history.
What is at stake here is not merely the economics of petroleum. The continuous expansion of the State of Israel inflames the entire Islamic world. In February of this year, Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, repeated the Christian nationalist delusion, supposedly sanctioned by a Bible verse, that Israel has a right to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates, an area that includes not only Palestine, but parts of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. U.S. military and financial aid, along with its veto power in the UN, are the very things that allow this constant expansion. Yes, European Jews required a refuge after centuries of brutal mistreatment by “Christian” nations. But their only hope for real security now is to reverse expansion and work for a solution that establishes peace and justice — particularly for the Palestinians. Domination only creates endless — and increasingly desperate — resistance.
So, why is the U.S. still in this war? Apart from saving face, the central reason, I suggest, is the power of concentrated wealth. According to a recent Harvard Business School study, the richest 1% of Americans control more than four times as much wealth as the bottom 80%. In the current war, oil companies and military contractors are raking in enormous profits while most Americans, including small business owners and farmers, are in deep pain. This concentrated power, in the form of campaign contributions and lobbying, has captured the center of U.S. democracy. Mainstream politicians will not change this. They have little desire to defy the power of big tech, big oil, military contractors, and the powerful Israeli lobby that provides funding to the majority of legislators, both Republican and Democratic. Six months into the bombing of Gaza that followed the events of October 7, 2023, only 17% of House and Senate members favored a ceasefire while 68% of Americans supported it. During a campaign rally in 2024, when protestors shouted “We won’t vote for genocide,” Kamal Harris replied:” if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that.”
Humiliation now, rather than at the end of another useless bloodletting, might awaken Americans to the need for fundamental change. Elections alone cannot bring this about. We need a redistribution of power and wealth downward, a goal that was pursued by President Teddy Roosevelt when he broke the dominance of the Robber Barrons at the beginning of the 20th century, by FDR when he created the Social Security system during the Great Depression, and by President Lyndon Johnson when he agreed to support civil rights legislation in the 1960s. These changes did not occur through elections alone, but through powerful movements that challenged the anti-democratic influence of concentrated wealth and its chilling brutality. Are the least wealthy 80% up to it?
Patrick McGreevy lives in Greenfield and welcomes comments at pmcgreevy64@gmail.com.