How America Goes to War: Iraq, Ukraine and Now Iran
After promising during the 2024 election to stop the USA’s ‘forever wars’ in the 21st century, in less than six months in office Donald Trump is about to start another ‘forever’ war with Iran.
There’ll be no prior vote in Congress, as required by the US Constitution. No seeking support of the United Nations or forming a coalition with allies. Nor even a preparation of public opinion, apart from the Fox News network that appears completely on board. There won’t even be a suspension of the War Powers Act, as occurred in previous ‘forever wars’.
Trump plans to simply order US aircraft to bomb Iran, within days or perhaps even hours. Certainly as soon as the three additional US aircraft carrier task forces he’s ordered arrive on station in the Arabian sea off Iran’s southern coast.
The carriers and planes are there to neutralize Iranian coastal and inland anti-aircraft missile forces to create a corridor for US B-2 strategic bombers flying from USA’s Diego Garcia island airbase in the Indian Ocean. The B-2s will drop US made GBU 43 bunker busting bombs on the three or more Iranian sites that Israel, and now USA, allege are producing nuclear material for use in an Iranian bomb.
The US bombing will occur on the flimsiest evidence supporting the claim Iran is just weeks away from having a nuclear weapon, as the US and Israel leadership and both countries’ media are saying. To the contrary, however, UN IAEA inspectors this past March 2025 publicly said there was no evidence Iran was near having such a weapon. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of the US Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates all 17 US intelligence services, also told Congress that same month there was no evidence.
Two days ago as Trump was leaving a G7 meeting in Canada he was asked by the media what he thought of Gabbard’s view and statement. Trump replied:
“I don’t care what she said. I say they’re working on a weapon…I don’t listen to her”.
So who does Trump listen to? Netanyahu? Israel’s CIA-like counterpart, Mossad, instead of US intelligence services?
Trump will send US planes and bombers into Iran— not to prevent an attack on the USA by that country; not in response to an actual or imminent attack by Iran on US bases or its 40,000 troops now in west Asia; nor in response to an attack by Iran on US warships or any international shipping. Iran is not at war with the USA nor plans to; nevertheless, the USA will soon be at war with Iran.
Iran publicly offered this past week to sign a treaty saying it has no nuclear weapon and agrees not to develop one—a move strongly suggesting it is not concerned US inspectors would find anything indicating it has.
Trump is thus preparing to take the USA into another ‘forever’ war, this time with Iran on behalf of a foreign nation—Israel—simply because its leader, Netanyahu, has asked him to do so. The Israeli leader has been asking the USA to attack Iran since 2002 when he addressed the US Congress on the eve of the USA’s imminent Iraq invasion in 2003. Now he’ll likely get what he’s been asking for: the USA to attack Iran on behalf of Israel.
Since 2002 Netanyahu has cleverly deepened Israel’s influence—and indeed control—of the US government through its lobbying group, AIPAC, and other personal connections within the US bureaucracy, aka its Deep State.
A majority in Congress has already been writing a blank check to Israel to cover the costs of its current wars in GAZA, Lebanon and Syria. Congress will no doubt rubber stamp quickly any US air attack on Iran, in order to legitimize US bombing Iran—an act of war and aggression by America by any definition of international law. Like Congress, the US government bureaucracy and Deep State is also deeply aligned with Israeli interests, as is the Trump administration and the president himself.
The two political systems—USA and Israel—are fused at the political hip and have been for some time. There has never been anything quite like the political integration of the two systems, America and Israel, in the entire 250 year history of the USA.
Israel is the American Empire’s landlocked aircraft carrier looking out over the entire middle east, enforcing US imperial interests; America is Israel’s military weapons industry and blank check writer. It is estimated more than $340 billion in aid has been given to Israel by the US government since the 1970s. Most of which gets recycled back to the US companies providing Israel US advanced weaponry.
The USA ‘How to Go to War’ Playbook
Since 2001 America has been embroiled in what can only be called wars of empire: Wars to expand the empire. Wars to punish those who try to break from it or dare to chart an independent path. Wars to pre-emptively attack those who pose a potential challenge to it in the future.
There have been three defining wars of empire in the 21st century: the Iraq war of 2003-10 (of which the Afghan war was a second front). The Ukraine proxy war of 2021-25. And the Israel-Iran proxy war of 2023-25.
In retrospect, there is a pattern in how the US prepares and initiates war across all three.
When the US imperial elites—in government, Deep State, and Military Industrial Complex—shift the machinery of war into first gear and the war train leaves the station there is no calling it back. The gears of war were set in motion in 2002 in the case of the Iraq war; in 2021 in Ukraine; and sometime during 2024 in the current case of Iran. War plans are developed and the funding sources identified and earmarked months, and sometimes years, before military action is initiated.
Once the decision is made what remains is mostly the timing, i.e. when is it best to pull the trigger. That timing depends on getting the necessary military assets in place, lining up agreement to go to war with key players in Congress and US allies, preparing public opinion by creating an imminent threat image with the US public, and, if time and conditions permit, staging a ‘false flag’ event to give credibility to the imminent threat.
Here’s how the playbook works after initial preparations, as the US war train shifts into higher gear as evidenced in the last three major wars in the 21st century: Iraq, Ukraine, and Iran:
The Case of Iraq 2003
First, the US raises a set of demands the target country must meet and engages in a period of negotiations with it.
In the case of the Iraq war of 2003 the US charged Iraq with possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that it was planning to use. Who can forget the visuals of Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN security council showing charts of African countries from where Iraq had purchased ‘yellow cake’ to make nuclear material. WMDs include chemical or biological weapons. But Powell’s presentation suggested Iraq’s WMDs were also nuclear.
UN and US inspectors found no evidence of WMDs in the run up to the war. And after the war it was confirmed there were none. That didn’t matter at the time. The US War train had left the station months before. Assets and allies, Congress and public opinion, were already prepared and in place. In negotiations on the eve of war, Iraq agreed to US initial demands. The US just moved the goalposts. It demanded instead of UN IAEA inspectors the Iraqi armed forces submit to the occupation
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
