Self-Proclaimed “Peacemaker” Drags U.S. Into Another War

American warplanes bombed three nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday night bringing the U S military directly into Israel s war with Iran NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE President Donald Trump incongruously wrote in a social media post announcing the attacks Trump campaigned on ending foreign wars during his presidential run and has cast himself as a peacemaker In his second inaugural address he pledged to measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end and perhaps majority importantly the wars we never get into Trump also regularly asserts to have opposed the Iraq War from its outset He genuinely supported it We have completed our very fruitful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran including Fordow Natanz and Esfahan Trump wrote on TruthSocial All planes are now outside of Iran airspace A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site Fordow The aim of the attacks American and Israeli personnel have explained is to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb The U S intelligence group says that threat is not however real We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Iran s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons campaign he suspended in though pressure has maybe built on him to do so reads the Annual Threat Assessment published in March The assessment serves as the intelligence society s official evaluation of threats to the Homeland U S citizens and the country s interests Trump dismissed those and more contemporary assessments to the same effect Just a meager days ago literally no one was talking about an imminent Iran nuclear threat Defense experts who spoke with The Intercept warned the United States might be entering into a new round of the Forever Wars Between enabling Israel in Gaza and all of its operations across the Middle East and now these strikes in Iran we are setting the foundation for the next generation s War on Terror disclosed Wes Bryant who served until earlier this year as the senior analyst and adviser on precision warfare targeting and civilian harm mitigation at the Pentagon s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence He questioned the Trump administration s abrupt shift from negotiating with Iran about its nuclear venture to bombing it The idea of an imminent Iran nuclear threat wasn t serious a meager days ago Bryant mentioned The fact that suddenly Trump was pulled into this reactive major strike against Iran under the auspices of nuclear deterrence is I think among the preponderance disturbing red flags of this administration thus far Trump s decision to strike Iranian nuclear targets is a short-sighted one that will not achieve his stated objectives brings notable risks to the United States and could derail his foreign strategy priorities mentioned Jennifer Kavanagh the director of military analysis at Defense Priorities a think tank that advocates for measured U S foreign initiative To strike Iran while diplomacy was ongoing undermines his push for peace elsewhere including with Putin Why would Russia or any other country negotiate with Trump going forward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted his military s objective was to strike all of Iran s nuclear facilities He had been pressing Trump to augment Israel s attacks with weaponry his country does not possess namely the -pound GBU- s known as Massive Ordnance Penetrators or bunker buster bombs that Israel says can destroy Iran s underground nuclear enrichment facility in Fordow Former defense agents speculated that these weapons which are so heavy they can only be carried by U S B- bombers were used on Israel s behalf during the Saturday attacks If Iranian leaders respond to the U S strikes with a major counterattack such as striking American military bases across the Middle East it could set off an escalatory spiral and even more aggressive U S involvement Related U S Intel Says Iran Isn t a Nuclear Threat Israel Wants the U S to Bomb It Anyway Trump is trying to signal that he wants to get back to diplomacy but the jeopardy of a wider war is still very real and high Iran s retaliation will determine whether the United States can extract itself so easily stated Kavanagh a former senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation who served as the director of its Army Strategy scheme There is also very little chance Iran will negotiate now because Trump has no way to provide them credible assurances that if they come to the table they will be spared future attacks Kavanagh disclosed Trump has sacrificed important diplomatic leverage for narrow military gains of uncertain duration and in doing so has put the United States at vulnerability of another costly Middle East war that will further diminish U S global influence and American prosperity More than U S active-duty military personnel and civilians working for the Pentagon are deployed across the Middle East U S troops in the region have come under attack close to times at a minimum since October in response to the U S -supported Israeli war on Gaza Predominantly led by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian-allied Houthi regime in Yemen the strikes include a mix of one-way attack drones rockets mortars and ballistic missiles fired at fixed bases and U S warships across the region Trump struck a ceasefire deal with the Houthis in May Prior to the U S attacks on Iran the Houthis threatened to again target U S ships in the Red Sea if Washington joined Israel s attacks on Iran Meanwhile Netanyahu has expressed his desires for regime change in Iran and not ruled out targeting the country s supreme leader saying no one in Iran should have immunity Israel s defense minister explained Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cannot continue to exist Trump joined in on the threats pointing out that the U S knows Khamenei s location and dangled the possibility of assassinating him in the future We know exactly where the so-called Supreme Leader is hiding He is an easy target but is safe there we are not going to take him out kill at least not for now Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week before Saturday s strikes Military force by itself is seldom effective in orchestrating regime change Joseph Votel a retired four-star Army general who headed both Special Operations Command and Central Command which oversees U S military efforts in the Middle East stated The Intercept before the U S began its attacks on Saturday There will be ramifications against the U S and this should be discussed and addressed in detail Votel warned There is no clean program we can take in this situation The U S had already poured billions into Israel s war machine supplying it with advanced weaponry from fighter aircraft and tank ammunition to tactical vehicles and air-to-air missiles The U S is the primary supplier of all of Israel s combat aircraft and the bulk of its bombs and missiles These weapons are provided at little or no cost to Israel with American taxpayers primarily picking up the tab An analysis by Brown University s Costs of War Project tallied up around billion in military aid to Israel in the year following the start of Israel s war on Gaza on October This represented far more than any other year since the U S began providing military aid to Israel in Related Congress Has One Way to Stop Trump From Going to War With Iran On Tuesday Reps Thomas Massie R-Ky and Ro Khanna D-Calif introduced a bipartisan War Powers Resolution which would prohibit the United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran It currently has co-sponsors including Rep Pramila Jayapal D-WA Congress has the sole power to declare war full stop she posted on X on Saturday before the attacks The idea that the U S would potentially deploy a bunker buster bomb in Iran w out Congressional approval not only flies in the face of our Constitution it would also rope us into another forever war that Americans do not want Sen Tim Kaine D-Va introduced similar provision in the Senate earlier this week After the U S bombed Iran on Saturday House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries suggested that Trump had lied about being a peacemaker and that Congress should have a say in whether the country goes to war President Trump misled the country about his intentions failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East Jeffries D-NY wrote on X Online and in an address to the nation Trump suggested that more attacks could be coming ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT the president wrote on TruthSocial The post Self-Proclaimed Peacemaker Drags U S Into Another War appeared first on The Intercept