This Is Israel’s War – Not Our War
By John J. Duncan Jr.
President Trump, to his credit, demanded a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Both countries agreed to it. Then, the president became very angry with Israel because, as he said, “As soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”
But as I write this column, the ceasefire is still in effect. I hope it lasts. However, just two days before the ceasefire, we dropped ten 30,000-pound bunker bombs on Iran, a country that had not even shot one bullet at us.
Please, God, let this be the end of our involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.
This is Israel’s war. It is not our war. Netanyahu and Israel First neocons led us into a very unnecessary war in Iraq that cost the lives of so many young Americans, and led to the blinding and maiming of thousands more. It was not worth their sacrifice.
Donald Trump was elected as president in 2016 primarily because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, and because he promised to put America First.
The overwhelming majority of Americans – both Democrats and Republicans – do not want this country stuck in another war in the Middle East.
This is not our war; it is Netanyahu’s war. The very respected foreign policy expert and Columbia professor, Jeffrey Sachs, a Jew, has described Netanyahu as “one of the most violent and dangerous people in this world.”
Tom Friedman, the longtime New York Times columnist and also a Jew, wrote in his column of May 9 that “Netanyahu is not our friend.”
Israel claimed it had killed Iran’s top eight generals and its nine leading nuclear scientists even before the U.S. dropped its bombs.
Israel also claimed it had destroyed Iran’s ground-based air defense capabilities and had achieved total air superiority even before we got involved.
If their claims are true, Israel was already winning this war. They started this war, let them finish it – without us.
Israel supposedly had two main goals in invading Iran: To stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program and to foster regime change there.
Well, all of our top intelligence officials in both Democratic and Republican administrations had certified for years that Iran was not building any nuclear weapons. Tulsi Gabbard, now our highest intelligence official, also certified this again in her congressional testimony on March 25.
Netanyahu was so eager to go to war against Iran – he has cried wolf so many times, for 30 years, always falsely saying Iran was just weeks or months away from developing a nuclear bomb.
Netanyahu claimed many times that Iran was the main purveyor of terrorist violence around the world. Actually, it has been Israel that has spread violence throughout the Middle East.
The late Charley Reese, who in 1999 was voted as the most popular columnist by C-Span viewers, wrote in 2002: “The big pushers for war with Iraq are the usual suspects – Americans with a long record of pretending to speak about American interests, when in fact, they are pushing an Israeli agenda.” Today, you can replace the word “Iraq” with the word “Iran.”
As far as its goal of regime change is concerned, the very respected foreign policy analyst, John Mearsheimer, said you cannot achieve that goal with only an air campaign. Americans definitely do not want to see the boots of our troops on the ground in Iran.
Too many of our presidents and their top advisors have seemingly wanted to be new Winston Churchills. They seem to feel more important if they can lead us into another war.
Eisenhower, who spent his career in the military, was strong enough to resist this impulse in 1956 when Israel demanded that we support its war against Egypt.
Mitchell Bard wrote about this in The Times of Israel in 2014: “Eisenhower went on television to criticize Israel’s failure to withdraw from Egypt and warned he would impose sanctions if it failed to comply. Eisenhower was prepared to cut off all economic aid, to lift the tax-exempt status of the United Jewish Appeal, and to apply sanctions on Israel.” What courage that was.
Today, almost every member of the U.S. Congress is afraid to criticize Israel’s bombing, killing, and starving of many thousands of little children because of the Israel Lobby’s power and ability to direct massive campaign contributions for them or against them.
President Trump said on February 13 that he wanted to cut the defense budget in half. Now he is pushing a “Big Beautiful Bill” to increase defense spending by $150 billion, moving it to over one trillion dollars a year.
On May 13 in Riyadh, President Trump criticized neocons, nation builders, and interventionists. Then, unfortunately, he bowed to the wishes of warmonger neocons by approving the dropping of bombs on Iran.
And, finally, President Trump said in his Inaugural Address: “We will measure our success not only by little battles we win, but also by the wars that end, and perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE WARS WE NEVER GET INTO.”
Candidate Trump reportedly accepted a $100 million campaign contribution from Miriam Adelson in return for a promise to support Israel in every way. Hopefully, he can resist this pressure and go down in history as an anti-war, peace president like Eisenhower.
