It is becoming a more and more commonly voiced opinion even by “ball-knowers” on matters regarding the Trump administration, that the war in Iran is being fought for Israeli interests, that it has no strategic bearing for the United States, the somehow the DoW is at significant risk during their operations around Iran, and that fundamentally the inception of the war in Iran was a violation of principles that constitutes a betrayal of the Trumpist philosophy that is “America First”. I really could not disagree more.
I will try to keep to philosophy over strategic discussion as a matter of course for this post, but it bears saying that even a small amount of google or Grok using will enlighten you to several relevant facts:
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There is a war in Ukraine, that war is being conducted by Russia as an aggressor, and that Russia is as they have been historically a direct adversary power to the United States which seeks to foster conditions that allow them to control natural resource and technology markets in eastern europe so that they can cripple western european powers who have historically been responsible for geopolitical assassination and stagnation of the Russian people.
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China is a large asian country on the other side of the planet to the USA, and is considered the primary peer economic, industrial, and military threat power to the United States. China preaches and does its best to practice dipolar world power philosophy and at every turn makes whatever effort is possible to subvert, copy, and deny US interests in foreign markets in sectors already mentioned.
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There is a particular country in the middle east who historically and presently act as an industrial and political middle man to powers that compete with the United States. This country has done this for its entire industrial history and would continue to do so with the tacit blessing not only of Russia and China but also the larger Arab world if its ability to conduct those operations was not significantly or permanently impeded. This country is Iran.
Plainly said: Boomers and Gen-X people have lived in very real fear of direct conflict between nuclear powers for their entire lives, and have lived in era’s of proxy wars that govern the markets and cultures between the sides of those nuclear powers their entire lives. It is satisfying for them when a third power which raises no real risk of nuclear retaliation can be safely and effectively annihilated by the United States, it shows we are still potent, that peace has not ruined the nation that took Iwo Jima and Omaha Beach. This is of course sycophantic boomerism, and political psychopathy of the highest order. Neither the baby boomers nor Gen X have been as generational groups affected in meaningful ways by the wars the United States fights abroad. Gen X are too young for Vietnam, too old for the GWOT, Boomers hated Vietnam and the men who fought that war and reject any responsibility or association with it and are content to preside judgmentally over the country as it places itself in other inarguably more actually lethal conflicts. Trump’s doctrine of “America First” uniquely appealed not only to jingoistic retirees and small business Americans but also the the Millenials and Gen Z’ers of the recent and modern military populations and their relevant family voterships. Everyone understands that the way the GWOT was conducted was a weird disaster, and it is starting to be acknowledged that the fault for that weird disaster lies more with the powers that made it impossible to prosecute it as a conflict than with the men who were on the ground fighting it. Trump’s promise was (I don’t think ever explicitly verbalized this way) “Never again will we be stuck in the middle east getting Americans killed for no reason” and upon a first glance at Iran, you could understand the frustration of certain lower political echelons with our involvement, especially in the face of gleeful boomers who are getting the war they have wanted since Reagan.
The question to ask yourself is about secondary effects and implications. There is a good and bad reason to conduct any war. A bad reason to conduct a war is to have no reason. A good reason to conduct a war is to have a reason. That logic is so foundedly solid it is the most annoying game mechanic besides incest in Europa Universalis, and it comes from the historically legalist western european tradition of campaigning and prosecuting conflicts in a “Just” way. The “reason” we are in Iran I do not believe is really strictly related to nuclear materials they do or do not have. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any reason to be in Iran, and that doesn’t mean that we are in Iran for a bad reason. Crippling the Iranian regime is bad for Russia and China. What is bad for Russia and China is good for the United States. We are a country that is behind the times, and I do not mean in terms of our ability to put on a drone show showcase of a CAD model of Samus’ ass over a major city like they can do in Bingbong province lower region eastern satellite federal title state in China. I mean that the United States is only now, literally the day of posting putting people back in orbit around the moon, inventing sustainable technologies, architectures, and logistical chains for satellites and space travel, reorganizing the military around militarist principles. We are behind on these things. We are very fortunate that every other country in the world is poor and fucking sucks at these things, or it would already be over for us forever. But is isnt. In Trump 1 they stood up the Space Force and now every branch is getting a liaison MOS because what the Space Force provides as a service is absolutely necessary for every branch to be able to access. Elon Musk is making the world-internet that will be the only option in 10 years and using American supply chains and employing American engineers to do it. America is First. It just takes time to develop these things. People thought (and rightly still think) that standing up the Space Force was a UFO conspiracy level move by Trump, that Elon is a redditard weirdo, and that the military is finding work for itself where none exists. But if you just hold on for a few years you will feel as silly for being mad about this stuff as people did when they put 50,000 ICE agents on the streets of this country to corral the Lovecraftian mass of illegal non-state dependents that Trump reminded everyone were the chief economic problem in this country 10 years ago.
It also should be addressed that the Iranian action specifically benefits Israel. Anything at all that anyone does in the middle east benefits Israel because the only community more reactive and neurotic than Israeli’s are Arabs who are still living on the funny farm that was established by the KGB in 1970. The middle east also happens to be in the middle between Europe and Asia, hence the name, and so all the traffic of everything that touches our European “allies” goes through there, and is therefore an eminent concern to us because if left unattended it will be owned by China or Russia. Contrary to the thoughts of some, it would actually be bad to live under Xi Xinping world community push button manufacturing economy architecture because the Chinese state is evil and will subsume the world in the same way Indians would, except with more cabbage.
You are not smarter than the President, or the think tanks. You have forgotten that he was saved by the mere grace of God from assassination and that the United States has been chosen for a very special mission on Earth that is being accomplished in your lifetime before your very eyes. You have forgotten these things because like everyone else on Earth you are a bug person crawling in the mud of a job and traffic and the world of women. Read BAP book, follow Bane and Trump on twitter. Join a three letter agency or your local city municipal jobs program or shut up about the stuff that real people are getting done in the fight against the biomass which is eating the planet. This time the World.