Tag: middle-east

Scoring the Iran War

What did we gain from the Iran war and what was the cost (so far)? Why did we launch this war? What was our objective and have we achieved it?

From a NYTimes article and JD Vance speech the US budgetary cost of our illegal attack on Iran was about $150 billion. This year’s conflict cost five to six thousand lives. This does not include the economic cost to the world from oil shortages and food shortages expected from the shortage of fertilizer, etc. NYTimes – Iran war costs

In evaluating what we gained from the war it is hard to know whether to treat the negative outcome as a negative gain or an additional cost. Prior to this war the Straits of Hormuz were open and passage was free. While Iran seems to have agreed to reopen them, they have now clearly demonstrated the potential to close them or charge for passage as potential future choke points. While Iran may be giving up its financing of friends in the neighborhood (Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Yemen), and this would be an import gain, it has established its military strength to defend itself while the US has demonstrated its vulnerability.

More importantly, Iran is now judged by many to be more likely to build an atomic bomb. The Iran Deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -JCPOA) negotiated by the Obama administration, which insured that Iran would not do so for at least ten years, was overturned during the first Trump administration. Hopefully such assurances can be reestablished during the 60 day negotiations still ahead. Though such a bomb would violate Islamic doctrine, the need for such protection has been greatly increased by US/Israel aggressions. But the MOU agreed to this week provides no assurance that a new agreement would be any better than the one Trump killed in May 2018. The Washington Post’s careful analysis suggests that it is not promising that a new agreement will be any better than the old one:  Trump condemned Obama’s Iran deal-here’s how his own compares

In an interview at the opening of his Presidential Library in Chicago, former President Obama stated that: “it feels like we are back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little worse off…”  The Hill-Obama on Trump Iran war Obama’s assessment was not including the costs of the war noted above.

US support of Israel has been very costly. Virtually the whole amaworld, other than the US, has condemned Israel’s behavior in recent years. The number of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza alone since the Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas that killed 1,200, is hard to estimate in part because so many remain buried under the rubble. As reported in an interesting effort to estimate deaths, over half of those killed were women and children, Ralph Nadar stated that: “The recent report by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to a consensus of 680,000 deaths.  Fatalities by Israel-vast Gaza genocide-deliberately undercounted These deaths don’t include those in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, which continue to this day despite a so-called cease fire.

More broadly the damage to America’s reputation because of our support of Israel’s bloody attacks of its Palestinian, Lebanon, and Syrian neighbors has been further increased by its illegal attacks on Iran. Our rapid decline continues.

According to Ian Bremmer: “The cease-fire does not mark the end of this chapter of conflict and regional division in the Middle East; it is instead driving a geopolitical realignment along new fault lines.

“More outcomes? A more polarized and fractured Middle East. Iran in a stronger strategic position. And American partners shaken by erratic and unpredictable conduct.

“The war has accelerated the collapse of the US-anchored order that held the Middle East together for decades. That arrangement kept oil flowing, rival powers out of the region, and Washington the broker of everything that mattered – from Iranian containment to the more recent Arab-Israeli normalization process. It was already fraying before the fighting started. The war broke it.”   Linkedin – What actually mattered

From the River to the Sea

I oppose the death penalty, but on occasion have said (and perhaps written) that I am tempted to relax my opposition for those who deliberately spread lies (or bomb babies). This is my cherished right in the U.S. where we enjoy (still to some extent) our freedom to say whatever we want. I strongly oppose antisemitic statements as well as false claims that condemning acts of the Israeli government is antisemitic. But I defend the right of people to says such things (but would never invite them to my home). It is also my right to condemn their rudeness.

The demonstrations of Jewish (Israeli) and Arab (Palestinian) students condemning Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent attack on Gaza (and increased violence against Palestinians in the West Bank) are understandably intense. To be clear, violence from demonstrators toward anyone (such as blocking access to class) is not protected by our First Amendment right to free speech and would be certainly condemned by me. But shouting death to the Palestinians or to the Jews without actual threats of violence is protected. The First Amendment is not needed to protect speech we agree with or like but speech we disagree with and/or are offended by. The benefits of such freedom in our society are huge but seem to need renewed support.

I am particularly annoyed by deliberate distortions of the meaning of chants like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” I share that aspiration. Indeed, everyone from the river to the sea should be free. Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, was censured by House lawmakers for saying it.

Unfortunately, disapproval and disagreement have morphed into inappropriate sanctions:

“The brother of a British-Israeli man who had been killed during Hamas’ attack on 7 October… told the BBC that he found the marches in the UK for Gaza upsetting and intimidating. Chants like ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ were, he observed, evidence of deep-rooted and growing antisemitism in British society.

“The problem is not just that many British Jews assume the UK has an antisemitism problem based on a highly dubious interpretation of the chant’s meaning. It is that establishment media organisations are echoing that misunderstanding and treating it as more newsworthy than Israel killing Palestinian babies, with the UK government’s blessing. It is just one illustration of a pattern of reporting by western media outlets skewing their news priorities in ways that reveal a racist hierarchy of concern. Jewish fears are of greater import than actual Palestinian deaths, even babies’ deaths. 

“The hypocrisy is especially hard to stomach, given a central Israeli justification for its subsequent genocidal rampage through Gaza. Israel promoted the claim that Hamas had beheaded 40 Israeli babies on 7 October – a story that was widely reported as fact, even though no evidence was ever produced for it.”  “Israel-Palestine war: Gaza slogan bigger news than murder of babies”

New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s attack on the President of MIT, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania for defending free (if repugnant) speech was particularly disgusting and alarming. The President of the U of Penn, Liz Magill, was evening forced to resign. While there may be some grey areas between shouting that all Arabs or all Jews (or Trumpeters) should die and actually threatening their lives, the attacks we have been seeing on the freedom to say nasty things is dangerous to a valued American institution. So is the increasing loss of civility (good manners). To preserve (or reestablish) the society we cherish, we need to use our freedom to speak to defend both speech and manners.