MAGA — And Pro-lifers — for War (Economic Fallout from War)

By Wayne Allensworth

During the Iraq war, especially at its onset, I noticed something: Disturbingly, GOP voters, maybe even more so among church-going voters, were enthused about the war. And not just about this war, it seemed to me, but about war, period. They — including some people I attended church with — reveled in the destruction of the “Shock-and-Awe” campaign as if it were a video game and their side were winning. As usual, a major factor was that “our” guy, not  “their” guy, was vaporizing people and blowing places to smithereens. Like lemmings, Americans follow the leader over whatever cliff he chooses. Their behavior was not only puerile and cruel, but also so far at odds with what I expected from serious people as to convince me that even the most apparently upstanding citizens of a decadent empire were in some ways childish, lacked empathy, and had politicized even their religion.  

It’s one thing to think seriously about a situation, conclude that war is necessary, and grimly — cognizant of the moral and material costs — go about the bloody business of killing. It was quite another to accept at face value whatever “our” government told us, unexamined, despite plenty of evidence that the reasons to justify the war were fabricated. And support for war was offhandedly taken as a sign of “patriotism” and right thinking. This was hardly a case of war as a last resort in a critical situation. It was a “war of choice,” a show of “strength,” and a vicarious thrill for the warmongers. No one questioned the civilian casualties — “collateral damage” — or even asked elementary questions about the endgame. It didn’t seem to matter. More ironically, many of the war hawks were also supposedly “pro-life.” Taking a human life for any reason is a grave matter. Taking an innocent life is a terrible sin. Or so they said. Their behavior belied that. The most pro-life thing I could think of was to remain skeptical of war as a solution to anything. As far as the neoconservatives and Zionists who pushed the war go, recall also that Canadian David Frum, who like them strangely didn’t enlist in the U.S. Army or Marine Corps to join the fight, fingered those on the right who opposed the war as “unpatriotic conservatives.”

The USA, something I would distinguish from “America,” a cultural and historical body rather than a political one, has been waging war practically my whole lifetime. “Conflicts,” “police actions,” “interventions,” “brushfire wars,” and in this century, a nonstop parade of destruction, death, and futility in “forever wars.” Based wholly on lies, the Iraq war was a disaster that unleashed a tidal wave of chaos across the Middle East. Perpetual war for perpetual peace. Wars that have bankrupted us, cost so many lives, maimed so many people. Wars that have been the health of the Deep State, expanded government power over our lives, and fed the “invade the world; invite the world” paradigm, making America increasingly less American, the empire in many cases being a tail wagged by a multi-national diaspora’s dog. Foreign policy and domestic reality are inextricably entwined with one another.

Americans are stereotypically notorious for their lack of historical awareness, their ignorance of the nations they have decided to remake, and their hubris that is the offspring of superpower arrogance. And we  — whether “left” or “right” — have largely absorbed the Messianic drive that animates the entire Washington establishment. The USA is a religion to so many of us. An idea. The universal nation. Heaven achievable on earth, whether in some “liberal” or “conservative” form. Not a real place. Not a particular people or culture. Not a real nation with concrete interests, a sense of limitations, and much-needed humility about what is possible and what isn’t.

War has frequently been drummed up under false pretenses, including the “Good War.” One would have thought that after Iraq and the futile war in Afghanistan, Americans, however bombarded with war propaganda and superpower rationales, would not be in a hurry to go to war again. That they would have learned from being lied to and betrayed by “their” government. Forget about observing constitutional and legal norms that were intended to limit the state’s war powers. Those have been gone for a long time, the victims of two world wars and the massive Deep State created and nurtured by them. Donald Trump campaigned on no more “forever” or “regime change” wars, on clipping the wings of the Deep State, and on cutting the deficit and reducing the bureaucracy. His voters seemed to agree.

Yet here we are, again. And judging by recent polling, many of those same voters support this latest orgy of bloodletting, which is not backed by a majority of poll respondents. Apart from the dissidents who have broken with the administration, MAGA seems happy with all of this. MAGA has been reduced to militarism — a regimented, bureaucratized, and ideological “patriotism” and “greatness” that has little or nothing to do with real “national security,” the kind that would improve prospects for our young people to marry, have a family, and buy a home, for instance. “National security” is the catch all for militarist adventurism, the intoxicating thrill of vicarious muscle flexing for a largely emasculated culture. MAGA even forgot about the populist impulse to reign in a greedy, depraved, and decadent elite that seemed to animate it at one time. “Their” president has betrayed them in the Epstein affair. “We” are in charge, so anything goes. Just like their opponents who are simply the flip side of one coin. Name your poison. They both kill.

Our chest-thumping super patriots don’t seem to flinch at the Zionists calling the shots. It is a strange sort of “patriotism,” that of a lapdog waiting for the next command from the Master. They are content to treat Donald Trump, now reduced to the pathetic role of sidekick to Benjamin Netanyahu, as some sort of savior, making their leader an idol. And the Christian Zionists are the worst among them. I do not wish to hear any more about “radical Islam” when our own idolatrous fanatics are determined to bring on the Apocalypse themselves, destroying their own country in the process.

The White House has no plan, no strategy, and no way out of Iran at this point. The administration, which had hoped that an air campaign would bring about the Iranian regime’s collapse, acted in ignorance. Desperate, Trump’s minions won’t rule out “boots on the ground,” and Trump might consider a “small contingent” of U.S. forces for “specific strategic purposes.” “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground,” Trump told the New York Post. He added that he probably won’t need them, but, if necessary, he could go that route. The White House won’t even rule out a draft. And Trump has said that “the map” in Iran won’t look the same after a war, again echoing Netanyahu’s apparent desire to dismantle Iran. This looks dangerously like “mission creep,” perilous steps up the escalation ladder, suggestive, at least potentially, of a Vietnam-like scenario. And, as Breaking Points notes, every burst of bluster and bravado from Trump emphasizes the existential nature of the war for Iran, which hardens its resolve.

The economic consequences of this war are already evident in higher oil, natural gas, and gasoline prices. A drawn-out war could trigger a global depression.

War with Iran is costing a debt-ridden government more than $1 billion dollars a day and there is no end in sight, unless Trump suddenly relents and attempts to declare victory and get out. Reported European Business Magazine.com:

“The compounding effect of that daily rate is where the picture becomes truly striking. At $1.43 billion per day, thirty days of conflict costs $43 billion — more than the entire annual budget of the US Department of Homeland Security. At sixty days, the figure reaches $86 billion, equivalent to what the United States was spending annually in Afghanistan at the absolute peak of that war. At ninety days, $129 billion. At six months — the timeline Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has publicly stated it can sustain — the total reaches $259 billion. If the conflict runs through September, the cumulative military cost alone approaches $306 billion.”

Citing the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the website reported that the first $3.5 billion of the $3.7 billion spent  was entirely unbudgeted. That is, there has been no congressional authorization, not even a supplemental appropriations bill. The Trump administration is funding a war by executive action alone, an arrangement the magazine in understated fashion called “deeply unusual.”

If Iran can continue a war of attrition for six months, “the United States will have spent the equivalent of its entire annual defense budget increment on a single, unbudgeted military campaign.” Meanwhile, “$3.5 trillion was wiped from global financial markets in a single week as the war escalated.” Broader economic damage is expected on pension funds, retirement accounts, and sovereign wealth funds.

So far, “Operation Epic Fury” is looking like Operation Epic Failure. Trump’s cavalier attitude and Messianic delusions could keep American forces mired down in Iran for some time. What’s more, Trump has given up U.S. sovereignty even in theory by declaring that ending the war would be a joint US-Israeli decision. 

How’s that for “America First?” Are you tired of “winning” yet? 

Chronicles contributor Wayne Allensworth is the author of  The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-Communist Russia, and a novel, Field of Blood. For thirty-two years, he worked as an analyst and Russia area expert in the US intelligence community.

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