Benjamin Franklin said it best: “There never was a good war, or a bad peace.”
Now that war is again underway—the third attack on Iran in two years—people of healthy human consciousness must pray that the destruction and carnage is limited.
Yet the trajectory appears to be grim.
Wars often progress in unexpected ways. The Persian Gulf region is a tangled spaghetti plate of interests including economic, religious, cultural, and geopolitical. None of our politicians have proved capable of comprehending those interests and foreseeing the consequences of their elective wars. President George W. Bush was stunningly uninformed about the existence of Sunni and Shia factions when he invaded Iraq, a war that inadvertently empowered Iran. Officials who assured us that they knew where the phantom Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were, were quite wrong. Just as they were wrong when they foolishly assured us that the war would last “six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”
Similarly, as many quipped after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Washington took twenty years, trillions of dollars, and four presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
Nor can it be allowed to slip down the memory hole that only a year ago the Deep State installed Ahmed al-Sharaa, the terrorist head chopper formerly known as al-Julani, as the president of Syria. It must not be forgotten that until recently al-Sharaa carried a $10 million dollar bounty on his head placed by the U.S. government. He was a State Department “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” But now the new president of Syria, having been sanitized and empowered by the Deep State, is fêted by Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
The U.S. global military empire—the Empire of Lies—is capable of exerting force, but utterly incapable of understanding the consequences of its regime change wars.
That is but one reason that the Constitution, often cited but seldom adhered to, lodged warmaking authority with the people’s representatives. The Founders knew from historical precedent that heads of states and executive branches have a propensity to make needless war. Thus they provided that the people who pay for it with their lives, limbs, and prosperity, would make the decision to go to war. Those decisions are to be made through their elected representatives who become more judicious about engaging in needless wars since they know they can be held accountable for their judgement and their votes.
No one—I repeat, no one—knows how events will unfold from here. Already President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are talking about the prospect of American soldiers—“boot on the ground”—in Iran, while Israel has clearly threatened the use of nuclear weapons. As reports, spin jobs, and chest-thumping proceed, the proverbial wisdom that the first casualty of war is the truth should be borne in mind. Despite the escalation that we are seeing, people of healthy human consciousness must pray that the destruction and carnage is limited. Our voices must be heard and echo throughout the marbled palaces of Washington.
