Peace-loving people throughout the world breathed a sigh of relief when the Israeli-American war on Iran ended in June after 12 days, with President [Donald] Trump racing to triumphantly declare US strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. While his rhetoric suggested he wanted Israel and the world to view the U.S. bombing as a lasting resolution of accusations that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, Israel and its Western collaborators are already setting the stage for new aggression against Iran. Israeli strikes could be just days or weeks away, with Netanyahu hoping that, this...

When asked about the cost of their government’s support of the State of Israel, some Americans will say it’s $3.8 billion a year—the amount of annual military aid the United States is committed to under its current, 10-year “memorandum of understanding” with Israel. However, that answer massively understates the true cost of the relationship, not only because it doesn’t capture various, vast expenditures springing from it, but even more so because the relationship’s steepest costs can’t be measured in dollars. Since its 1948 founding, Israel has been far and away the largest recipient of...

Over the next decade, the US government plans to spend nearly $1 trillion on its nuclear arsenal—with the actual cost certain to run even higher than that. The huge outlay is driven in part by the sheer size of America’s doomsday-weapon collection, which comprises an estimated 3,700 deployed or stockpiled nuclear warheads, not counting another 1,500 that are purportedly “retired” and awaiting dismantlement. Though Americans have been conditioned to think it’s reasonable to maintain such a large arsenal, the idea that thousands of warheads are required to deter nuclear aggression rests on...