Warmongers

I once wrote on this blog that our President is not a warmonger. https://seaboltspublicsquare.com/war-what-is-it-good-for/ I may have jumped to a premature conclusion. Something has changed.

In the last eight months, our President has grown quite comfortable waging war. He attacked Iran last summer. He declared drug traffickers to be enemy combatants. The President blew up numerous vessels in the Caribbean Sea. He attacked Venezuela on its own soil and captured its president. On February 28, he joined forces with Israel and attacked Iran again. Any one of these could have ignited a broader conflict. This latest one might have finally accomplished just that.

I wrote about the President’s first attack on Iran last summer. I argued that the President had created an historic moment – an opportunity – to extract lasting concessions from Iran. You may recall that President Obama cut a deal with Iran. This President ripped that deal apart. He then created an opportunity to improve upon that deal last summer. He may have squandered that opportunity.

Do As We Say, Not As We Do

It seems the President did not want a new deal with Iran. He wanted regime change. Our leaders love them some regime change. One study found that the US engaged in 81 known overt and covert interventions in foreign elections from 1946 to 2000. Foreign adversaries better not dare interfere with our political process. But our elected leaders have no compunction about putting their thumbs on the scales in foreign political processes. It is perhaps our second greatest hypocrisy as a nation.

Second only to our self-satisfied notions of equality.

But I digress …

The US has a long history of failed attempts at regime change. Like the Cuba Bay of Pigs, or the Communists in Vietnam, or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, or the Taliban in Afghanistan. The list goes on.

The US also is really bad at choosing which dictators to support. You might remember that in the 1980s, the US supported Saddam Hussein’s rise to power. Who remembers how that turned out? The US also supported Pol Pot in Cambodia, Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iran-Contra affair, and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. For those keeping score at home, these were not good guys. And yet the US has the audacity to criticize how other countries choose their leaders.

The initial attacks took out Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was quickly named Iran’s new Supreme Leader. He was not the Administration’s pick. The new Supreme Leader is blocking the Strait of Hormuz, which is the only passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. He has vowed to “avenge the blood” of Iranian martyrs, including his father. He is threatening US military installations in the region and other Gulf States. This attempt at regime change might not be going as planned.

My how we ignore our history.

The Horrors of War

In the meantime, the casualties abroad are piling up. More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran in the last two weeks. Israeli airstrikes have killed another 600 in Lebanon. Retaliatory attacks by Iran have killed more than 20 people in the Persian Gulf. Seven American service members have been killed and another 170 have been wounded. So far.

Among the dead in Iran, 175 schoolgirls and staff were killed at a primary school in Iran. An investigation is underway. Early reports indicate that a Tomahawk missile may have been used in the attack. The President claims that Iran has Tomahawk missiles. The evidence does not support this claim. Only the US, UK, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands are known to have Tomahawk missiles. If a US Tomahawk missile was responsible for killing 175 schoolgirls and staff, well … It should go without saying. The President should not be bombing schoolgirls.

Of course, Iran is retaliating. Gulf States are reporting incoming threats from Iranian drones and missiles. This is against the backdrop of Israel’s war in Gaza and its war with Hezbollah. The whole region is being further destabilized.

The Threat at Home

The threat is not limited to the Persian Gulf or the Middle East. Keep in mind that Iran is considered by many to be the world’s leading sponsor of terror. We are fooling ourselves if we think Iran does not have dangerous operatives in this country looking to do us harm.

Just yesterday, there was an attack at Temple Israel in metro Detroit. A Lebanese man drove his vehicle into the Temple. Security at the Temple engaged with the assailant and shot and killed him. Federal and state law enforcement descended on the scene. It was chaos. Early reports indicate that the assailant lost family members during the airstrikes over Lebanon in the past two weeks. The war with Iran has come home.

My 17-year-old daughter attends high school just a few miles away from Temple Israel. I learned about the attack when my wife and I received a message from my daughter’s high school advising us that the school was locked down due to an emergency situation a few miles away. As a parent, it was a jarring message. Our family text string immediately lit up. As soon as we confirmed that our daughter was safe, I started writing this blog. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I had feelings to express. Fear. Anger. Confusion. All of it.

When it comes to terrorism, my greatest fear is not another 9/11. My greatest fear is that terrorists will attack us in our everyday places. Our homes. Our markets. Our schools. Our places of worship. It isn’t just the large-scale attacks. It is the smaller attacks that can hit us anywhere, anytime. That’s the terror that keeps me awake at night.

God Help Us

The President ran on a nationalist, noninterventionist platform. Whether you voted for him or against him, this President is breaking some important promises to the American people. The President’s foreign policy. His intervention. His nation building. His Department of War. His Department of State. His henchmen. His lack of diplomacy. His disregard of facts. His disrespect. His rhetoric. His hubris. They are all undermining his promises. The President’s policies, words and actions are igniting violence, putting our servicemen and women in harm’s way, and inviting retribution on our home soil. God help us if this war does not end quickly.