UE: No More Mideast Wars

Statement of the UE Officers

President Trump launched an unprovoked bombing attack on Iran this past weekend in violation of the U.S. constitution, which requires acts of war to be authorized by Congress unless there is a threat of imminent attack, which nobody has even pretended was the case. This is not only a further undermining of democracy in our country, it also is built on a set of lies for political and financial gain, just like the disastrous Iraq war 23 years ago, and will only serve to make the world, and the people of the U.S., both less safe and less economically secure.

The president ran for office pledging that he was the right person to keep the U.S. out of further military entanglements overseas, and there is strong support by the American people for that position. But faced with declining poll numbers, a trap laid by the Israeli government, and a willingness to pad the profits of both oil companies and the military industrial complex, Trump fell into the same pattern as president after president of both parties: start a shooting war and hope that the populace falls in behind you.

As rank-and-file delegates to the 78th UE Convention in 2023 declared, “The U.S. military budget — at over $877 billion, larger than those of the next ten nations combined — continues to soar out of control with bipartisan support. Threats or use of military force are still a regular feature of U.S. foreign policy, under presidents of both major parties. All of this is done at the expense of the needs of working people in the U.S. and throughout the world.” The only thing that has changed since that statement is that the upcoming military budget is expected to top $1 trillion for the first time.

The lie that was used to justify the mobilization of the U.S. military is that Iran was within weeks or months of building a nuclear weapon. That line has been trotted out by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly over the last 20 years, every time that he wants to justify dragging the U.S. into conflict there. Yet even the U.S. intelligence forces said that Iran was not working on constructing a nuclear weapon, and we had a deal a decade ago ensuring that they could not build one. But the first Trump administration tore up that deal in subservience to the Netanyahu government and in order to parade as tough on the world stage. 

Trump had actually returned to the bargaining table with Iran in recent weeks and announced that a new deal was very close. It was at that moment that Israel started bombing Iran – arguably not because Iran wouldn’t negotiate but instead because it looked like a deal would be achieved. It is an open secret that Netanyahu is trying to maintain a constant state of war for his country so that his current stint in office, extended indefinitely due to the war footing, doesn’t end and with it his protection from likely jail time on a massive corruption case. He has already pulverized Gaza back to the stone ages, bombed Lebanon into submission, and occupied parts of Syria – he’s happy to have a new target, especially one that drags the U.S. into the conflict. So once the Israeli bombing campaign was well underway, he announced that only the U.S. could finish the job, with our more-powerful ordinance. Trump had a choice to make, tell Israel to cease and desist, especially given that Israel relies heavily on U.S. financing and arms, or throw the U.S. into yet another intractable conflict in the Mideast putting our people into harm’s way for someone else’s fight, a fight with no shining knights on any side. Trump made the wrong choice.

And what does this leave us with? Iran, to save face at home and abroad, felt no choice but to retaliate. While it may be contained at this point, we will all live on a knife’s edge as we see whether we end up with either open or covert warfare spinning out of control. Forty thousand U.S. troops on the ground in the Mideast are put at risk. If we and the Israelis have been actually bombing sites loaded with nuclear material, we have risked dispersing it into the atmosphere, potentially poisoning people throughout the planet, as occurred during open air nuclear testing in the 1950’s. And the message we are sending to countries is not to avoid building nuclear weapons, but instead to do it quickly since it is only nuclear-armed nations that seem to be safe from possible U.S. attack.

We also face the likelihood of increased gas prices as the conflict potentially chokes off a sizable chunk of the world oil supply. Trump’s friends in the oil industry will laugh all the way to the bank as they benefit from the higher gas prices just as his military contractor friends will benefit from the demand for more weapons and ammunition.

To top it all off, Trump is now openly floating the idea of supporting regime change in Iran, the exact policy he correctly attacked previous administrations for getting embroiled in next door in Iraq, and one certain to be just as much a quagmire, if not more so, than that one, which cost the U.S. the lives of over 4000 service people and several trillion dollars in taxpayer money. And opening up the subject just hardens the position of Iran’s leaders, figuring that their days are numbered unless they fight and win.

Lastly, the lack of political leadership from both parties is shameful. Only a small number of Democrats and very few Republicans spoke out against U.S. intervention in the run up to the bombing campaign, preferring to acquiesce to the Israeli and military industry lobbying machines. And there is nowhere near the majority needed in Congress to seize control of war-making out of the hands of the presidency and back into the control of Congress where it belongs. The founders of the U.S. knew well that going to war is too important a decision to leave in the hands of one person. It must require the consent of the 535 members of Congress, each one of whom has to go home to their constituencies and tell them why they are sending their sons and daughters into harm’s way.

No more war in the Mideast. Congress must act.

Carl Rosen
General President

Andrew Dinkelaker
Secretary-Treasurer

Mark Meinster
Director of Organization