When a monster military like the US circles its prey for possible attack, very little can go wrong. Painful lessons of past wars have taught state leadership how to avoid mistakes that can drag the country into interminable conflict. If the order to pounce is given, the outcome will soon be decided and the winner never in doubt. The foregoing is offered as the naive view of US foreign policy.
But maybe the one currently in charge of the planet has digested Sun Tzu. Maybe the blatant seriousness of the threat will frighten the enemy into submission without a single shot—or missile—being fired. But what happens after they surrender? In the case of Iran, does the US state funnel every Iranian to Netanyahu for summary execution? One would think he might be too busy eliminating Palestinians for that option.
The big state needs to worry about the small state’s friends when considering an attack. Iran and Russia signed a partnership in 2025 that has recently been superseded by one that includes China. According to a report,
It explicitly combines the three powers in a coordinated framework, aligning them on issues ranging from nuclear sovereignty and economic cooperation to military coordination and diplomatic strategy.
What exactly does it mean if the US attacks Iran? Russia has been fighting the US in Ukraine by proxy for years. Perhaps it would find reasons to help out a partner in distress, with help from China.
Certainly US military leaders are advising the Commander-in-Chief of this and many other possible contingencies. One of them, Air Force General Dan “Raizin” Cane, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in effect don’t do it. Air strikes would be too risky.
General Caine has reportedly cautioned that a military action could have repercussions across the region, potentially including retaliatory strikes by Iranian proxies or a larger conflict that would require more US forces.
President Trump, however, doesn’t believe the report, considering it fake news. “If a decision is made on going against Iran at a military level, it is his [Cane’s] opinion that it will be something easily won, the president wrote” in a Truth Social post.
Without US aid, Russia likely would have crushed Ukraine long before now. Why does the president seemingly discount the possibility of Russia aiding Iran? And if Netanyahu tells Trump to destroy Iran once and for all, will Trump tell him no? Given their relationship, that’s hard to envision.
General Cane might very well believe an air strike on Iran would be easily won. Most people do. But how long would the victory last? Iran has been known to fight back. “[Americans’] beliefs about the Middle East have been given to them by the Israel Lobby and it’s [sic] many American associates,” writes Paul Craig Roberts. “The prevailing ignorance can very easily produce a catastrophic war.”
One of this country’s leaders once told Americans of his era that,
[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
I trust regular readers of this site will be thoroughly familiar with John Quincy Adams’s 1821 Fourth of July Speech. I repeat more of it below, not to inform but remind the reader that the government has failed us, thoroughly and deliberately. Please read on, all emphasis mine:
She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign Independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of Freedom and Independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
One of the problems with government is that a few make binding decisions for the rest of us. Many call it democracy, others stupidity. When those decisions are about going to war the outcome could be terminal. What if following a US attack Iran destroys a US warship or fighter jet? Would Trump call for escalation? Might a limited nuclear strike be on the table? Would the use of nukes get Russia involved? And China? According to the Telegraph, Russia has roughly ten times as many tactical nuclear weapons as the US—2,000 to 250.
With Ukraine unsettled and Trump under control of Israel, along with dozens of other tensions and hot spots, a third world war is not unthinkable. What is unthinkable is one possible consequence: A reset to the Stone Age or worse.
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