Democratic politics at the start of this century revolved around opposition to a Republican president’s claim to the king-like power of unilaterally entering wars, including with Iran. A little more than two decades later, it’s a Democratic president who now seems to be unilaterally bringing the country toward a war with that same country.
Somewhat lost in the madness of the election news cycle and the daily horrors of Israel’s rampage through the Middle East is that President Joe Biden is, with no legal authority and without even bothering to consult Congress, taking steps that are bringing us closer and closer to a disastrous US-Iran war.
This week, his administration announced it is putting boots on the ground in Israel, one hundred troops to man a missile defense system to protect Israel from a likely retaliatory attack from Iran. If that attack happens and any of those US servicemembers are killed as a result, you can expect a stadium’s worth of calls for the United States to attack Iran, which Biden and his vice president will have to somehow resist.
Not only is Biden risking war and putting American lives in harm’s way with this unilateral move; perhaps worse, he’s doing it entirely to bail Israel out of its own stupidity and recklessness.
The reason why Israel is even facing this threat is because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has wanted the United States to fight Iran for decades and has realized perpetual war is his ticket to staying in power, has repeatedly launched attacks on Iran that he knows will provoke it into hitting back. Making this worse is Israeli leadership’s insistence on always having the last word in these tit-for-tat exchanges, even when it’s the one that started it. Which is where we are…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
