Worst Kind Of War

Conflicts started on basis of untruths almost always produce the most negative consequences

War is sometimes necessary. Say, to defend a people and their territory against aggression. Hence the ‘just war’ theory. Jus ad bellum. Even just wars cause enormous suffering. But wars that are manufactured by being economical with truth have no redemptive logic. Their unsaid logic is usually electoral, a ‘wag the dog’ calculation that some foreign conflict would take the voters’ focus off domestic shortcomings. In this, Trump’s Iran war follows the script of Bush’s Iraq war. He has had major tariff and ICE setbacks, which are predicted to result in major reversals in the US midterm polls. That this is what’s driving him, is indicated by all the holes in his case for the Iran war.

Bush’s case for the Iraq war was built on the fiction that Saddam had developed weapons of mass destruction and was also connected to the 9/11 terrorist attack. It was spun across media, Congress and UN over two years. Operation Iraqi Freedom itself ultimately involved a ‘coalition of the willing’ numbering 60 nations. Trump didn’t bother with all that, announcing Operation Epic Fury in an 8-minute video on Truth Social, accusing Iran of ‘directly’ endangering America. All neutral experts disagree. Pentagon has reportedly briefed Republicans and Democrats that there was no intelligence about Tehran attacking US forces first. 

As for Iran’s nuclear programme, didn’t Trump say last year that ‘obliteration’ was the accurate term for what Operation Midnight Hammer had done to it? Most damningly, Oman’s foreign minister has underlined that Iran had just agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium. And to never, ever possess nuclear material for a bomb. 

After Bush, there was Obama’s adventurism in Libya. It dislodged Gaddafi but left behind a country destablised to this day. Damages from Iraq war are also still compounding. And not just in the region. In US, veterans are still dying by suicide. It’s no surprise that wars based on untruths usually have more negative consequences. Conflicts that are started on dodgy grounds don’t even offer the validation that ‘just wars’ can offer. And BTW, imperial Trumpian acts of this scale, say to Putin and Xi and wannabes, might is right. 

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