Here Goes Washington To War Again … Because It Still Empire First

lewrockwell.com · Feb 21, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Here they go again—the war drums on the Potomac are beating so loudly for war against Iran that the CIA stenographers at the NYT have now confidently announced that the next attack will commence this weekend. And yet and yet. Why? The overwhelming fact of life in the year 2026 is that Iran is not remotely a military threat to the liberty and security of Americans. Not in Washington DC or Podunk Iowa or anywhere else from sea-to-shinning-sea. Period. Full stop. Yet real, credible threat of military attack is the one and only reason for a peaceful, constitutional republic to go to war—and most especially to initiate military attacks on the far side of the planet. That is to say, if you do really believe that America should remain a liberty-based, solvent constitutional republic then you don’t initiate foreign wars just because the target country has bad leaders who oppress their people, or disagreeable religious beliefs and practices, or the wrong allies or even has purportedly acted aggressively against other countries in its regional neighborhood. The Great Deformation:... David Stockman Best Price: $4.26 Buy New $8.99 (as of 05:50 UTC - Details) These latter excuses, of course, are the sole reasons for what might become the Donald’s next act of military aggression on the world stage. So before it happens yet again, let’s at least be clear that the whole enterprise would be bogus because a valid sine qua non for offensive US military action is utterly, completely and incontrovertibly absent. Any attack on Iran, therefore, would not be an honest-to-goodness America First endeavor, but just another Empire First exercise in behalf of illegitimate goals: That is, helping an ally we don’t need (i.e. Israel); or enforcing bogus notions of Empire like the so-called “rule of law”; or bringing the blessings of Coca Cola, electronic voting, X-rated movies and long pants to peoples ruled by ostensibly benighted clerics and tyrants. So we needs hone-in tightly and directly on the one thing that matters—the existence or lack thereof of a presumptive military threat. The fact is, however, Iran has no military capabilities that are even remotely of the requisite caliber. And that starts with the fact that it has no blue water navy whatsoever. Compared to America’s 5 million displacement tonnage provided by 11 aircraft carriers, 15 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers, 80 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, 70 nuclear powered attack and ballistic missile subs and 50 amphibious assault ships of various types, the Iranian Navy is a nothing-burger, comprised of less than 285,000 tons of displacement or 6% of the US Navy’s firepower. Moreover, more than three-fourths of its roughly 100 ships are small coastal patrol boats and mini-subs that operate mainly inside the Persian Gulf. Its largest warship, in fact, is a converted oil tanker (the IRIS Makran) that has limited range, no suite of defensive aircraft and missiles and it can carry only a a couple of helicopters and drones. Likewise, its so-called “drone carrier”, the IRIS Shahid Bagheri, features a small flight deck with a ski-jump ramp at the bow, allowing launch and recovery of up to 60 small, wheeled UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). But were this drone carrier to venture outside the Pillars of Hercule (i.e. the Strait of Gibraltar) on any aggressive mission, its rendezvous with Davy Jones’ Locker compliments of US Navy missiles would be swift and certain. Beyond that, Iran doesn’t have any long-range air or sealift capacity to put a single Iranian soldier on the shores of New Jersey. It also has not a single long-range bomber that can reach New York City or any other US city— with or without a nuclear payload. Indeed, what passes for the Iranian Air Force is an aging fleet of US F-14s and F-4 Phantoms—plus ancient Soviet MIG-29s. This mainly pre-1979 vintage fleet is older than 55% of the US population and is mainly non-operational and marooned on Iranian airfields owing to lack of maintenance and spare parts. Likewise, its longest range missiles have an arc of just 2,000 kilometers, which is only half-way to the Strait of Gibraltar, which is 5,000 kilometers away from Tehran; and, even more to the point, only one-fifth of the way to Washington DC, which is 10,000 kilometers away! Indeed, the reason that Iran’s missiles can’t do any damage to even the hair on the neck of a single American citizen is that the aforementioned 2000 kilometer limit to the range of Iranian missiles is a self-imposed policy limit. That’s right. Iran’s longest-range operational ballistic missiles are limited by a self-imposed policy cap of approximately 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240 miles), which Iranian officials have stated is sufficient to cover regional threats (e.g., Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East) but no more. That is, the one and only route to attacking America open to Tehran is long-range ballistic missiles. Yet the ostensible war-seeking mullahs disarmed their own military! Moreover, this 2,000 km limit applies to everything they’ve got in their entire missile arsenal. This includes the Sejjil (solid-fuel, two-stage medium range ballistic missile), the Ghadr and variants of the Shahab-3 family (up to 2,000 km in extended versions). Furthermore, the missile most often highlighted as one of Iran’s most advanced in this category—-the Khorramshahr4—has also been designed to conform to the 2,000 km limit. Nevertheless, during the current so-called negotiations a key Trumpian “red line” has been either elimination entirely or sharp new limits on Iran’s already self-throttled ballistic missiles. But why in they hell is this even on the table and why is the Donald threatening war when Iran’s ballistic missiles are already padlocked with respect to any threat to the American homeland? We’d guess that the reason is not America First but rather Empire First—- including America’s needless bases and “allies” in the middle east, as we amplify below. In any event, Iran’s $20 billion defense budget is a pittance which amounts to just 2% of the Pentagon’s $1 trillion annual budget. That is, the entirety of Iran’s military might is equal to about 175 hours per year of US defense spending. Confessions of an Econ... Perkins, John Check Amazon for Pricing. And when it comes to the economic and industrial base necessary to pose a realistic, enduring military threat, fuhgeddaboudit: Iran’s diminutive $400 billion inflation-riddled GDP is heavily dependent upon oil and natural gas exports that can be bottled up in the Persian Gulf with ease. So its industrial base is not a threat to America’s 75 times larger $30 trillion of technologically-advanced and industrially diversified GDP in any way, shape or form. Moreover, if America were still a constitutional Republic adhering to the founders’ wise admonition to pursue friendly commerce with all nations but entangling alliances with none, the Donald’s current bluster via sending an armada of two aircraft carrier battle groups, much of the US air and sealift capacity, extensive cruise missile and drone fleets, electronics warfare assets and a plenitude of other tools of invasion and occupation to the Persian Gulf region would not have been on the table at all. Nor even under discussion anywhere on the banks of the Potomac. Indeed, no peaceful republic minding its own business would dream of bombing and invading a nation 10,000 kilometers away–no matter how disagreeable and noxious were its rulers or how hostile its relations with one or more nearby neighbors in the region. Indeed, war is so inimical to the very health and well being of liberty that the founders counseled against it in no uncertain terms. James Madison himself would have excoriated Donald Trump’s current threat to baldly violate the constitution’s War Powers clause in order to engage in an utterly discretionary act of war unrelated in any way to defense of the American homeland. The plain truth remains that the War Powers were reserved exclusively for an act of Congress, reflecting the voice of all the people: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” —James Madison Indeed, the very idea of launching yet another regime change war on Iran—and those were exactly the Donald’s words recently at Ft. Bragg—is purely a stratagem of Empire. Asked whether he wanted regime change in Iran, President Trump said it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen….” Moreover, in this case “regime change” is not even being disguised as necessary to bring democracy to the long-suffering people of Iran. It’s probably too embarrassing to mention even by Washington’s standards—given that Iran once actually had a functioning democracy until the CIA snuffed it out during the 1953 coup against Mossadegh in behalf of British Petroleum and the British Empire. Today, of course, Washington’s impending intervention is apparently in behalf of another “ally” that has far, far less to do with America’s homeland security than London did a half century ago on the cusp of the Cold War. Bibi Netanyahu’s brutal megalomania and outlawry to the contrary notwithstanding, Israel is not America’s “unsinkable a