BACKSTORY 56.1 War, What’s It Good For?

Written by SP Editor

President Trump headlined the news as I write today saying that his war on Iran in partnership with Israel's Netanyahu might last another "four or five" weeks. If we're lucky, and I sincerely hope we all are, by the time this issue reaches our subscribers' mailboxes and is posted on our website, this war will be over. I'm pretty sure not even the much vaunted "prediction" markets would take that bet as any certainty. In an era of "forever wars," this seems one that more easily than most could stretch on.

I write in the first days of what the New York Times refers to as his "reckless" adventure. Trump has offered no coherent rhyme or reason for his unilateral action. At times he has touted his interest in "regime change," something that the United States has proven to be notoriously bad at achieving. At other times, he wistfully expresses hopes that he can pull off a Venezuelan maneuver, where he ordered the military to extract the country's leader, and then makes nice with a successor, who will pay tribute in oil and pretend to be a US vassal. He says he has three or four potential successors in mind that he could back. Behind the scenes, he and Secretary of State Rubio seem to be pushing for a new leader in an effort to create a hat trick in Cuba. The fact that Iran has a population of 90-million and is larger than the state of Texas with a revolutionary history that is as embedded in religion, as it is in government, doesn't seem to have registered, giving some credibility to the Iranian response to his comments as "delusional." Trump is hoping for a spontaneous response in a country that is deeply divided, but that means nothing to Trump, any more than divisions in the US concern him.

This war, like so many similar ill-gotten enterprises, has no end game in sight and seems the equivalent of throwing missiles at as many targets as possible and hoping that somehow the breaks fall our way. There seems to be little advance planning or consideration of collateral impacts or fallout in America. The biggest concerns may be that we have been lured into a wider war in the Middle East, and many observers with better seats nearer to the action and information, believe that we've already crossed the Rubicon and the region will be changed forever, though not necessarily in a positive or progressive way. Oil prices have risen and are likely to trigger more inflation, the stock market is apoplectic in trying to absorb this unexpected conflict, our European and other allies are aghast at not been consulted or considered, and the United Nations Security Council wasn't even an afterthought. Congress, who are they? The only real explanation for the action by the US and Israel is that they could and that they wanted to strike while they perceived Iran as weak. That's not war planning. That's something more akin to scratching an itch.

We may be numb, as we read the papers and listen to the news, but we can't really pretend to be surprised. Sure, Trump has said we need to mind our own knitting and stop intervening in foreign affairs and wars. That was while he was running, so ancient history. In Trump II, he has militarized ICE as a domestic army, threatened to attack US cities, unilaterally hit boats in the Caribbean and Pacific claiming they were drug runners without offering proof, bombed sites in Nigeria claiming there was anti-Christian discrimination, hit Iran claiming again to have destroyed their nuclear capacity, and of course gone rogue and wild in Venezuela. Lies mean nothing to him, so why would anyone have ever believed he was serious about peace? Peace is hard. Negotiations take time. Shooting missiles is simply a matter of giving an order and exulting in being at the very top of the chain of command.

I hope this is over soon, but there's no reason to believe it will be, or that there won't be more of the same over the coming three years. These times are now darker with bombs bursting and blood flowing. The fact that we don't see this war in our front yards and the administration claims no authorization is necessary, because they want to pretend no American lives will be lost, doesn't make it any less real and terrible. Despite the distance from the conflict, the shame is ours, and any claim to our collective innocence is gone.

Wade Rathke is the Chief Organizer of ACORN International, Founder and Chief Organizer of ACORN (1970-2008), and Founder and Chief Organizer of Local 100, United Labor Unions(ULU).