Washington Post: Two winners in the war between Iran… The US isn’t one of them
The American military historian and author Max Boot wrote about the US war on Iran, while achieving some military goals, casts a shadow on the global balance and doesn’t necessarily benefit the United States.
Washington is trying to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and limit its ballistic missile capabilities, but rising oil prices and the US decision to ease sanctions on Russia would boost Moscow’s military capabilities, and the depletion of US air defense missiles reduces support for Ukraine in its war.
Although the United States is energy independent, the Trump administration justifies its attacks on Iran in part with this independence: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum stated months ago that the United States no longer gets oil from the Strait of Hormuz, giving it the freedom to use military force without worrying about the impact on fuel prices, even though gasoline prices rose 14% last week.
Despite attempts to withdraw from the Middle East since President Barack Obama’s administration, the White House is now spending more blood and resources on a new regime-change war in that region, even though there has been no imminent threat that justifies a sudden start of war.
The war distracts Washington from the escalating challenge posed by China, which is investing heavily in future industries and is ahead of the United States in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computers, electric cars and drones, as well as strengthening its naval and nuclear military capabilities, including nuclear submarines that threaten US control of the seas.
The Trump administration, while justifying the Iranian attack as a response to Iran’s historic record of hostility to the United States, doesn’t have a clear plan for creating a new free and democratic Iran, even though the war has high blood and money costs, increased national debt pressures, and may reduce its ability to confront more important adversaries such as Russia and China.
The biggest beneficiaries of this war are not the United States, but Russia, which is benefiting from rising oil prices, and China, which is leading in the industrial and military race, making the US war on Iran look like a whimsical war that distracts from US major economic and military priorities.
