Osama Bin Laden's 9/11 goal: The U.S. out of the Arabian Middle East.
We cannot hold up our end of the bargain with the Gulf's oil monarchies: We were to protect their oil infrastructure, they sell oil in U.S. dollars.
It turns out we cannot protect them. We cannot even protect our military bases.
CBS News published these photos of damage to U.S. bases in the region. They are undated photos but were presented as damage from recent Iranian strikes. There are multiple sources of confirmation that U.S. bases in the region are no longer safe or usable to place troops or weapons.
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| Prince Sultan Air Force Base, Saudi Arabia. |
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| Camp Buehring, Kuwait |
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| Camp Arifjan, Kuwait |
This isn't Trump's mess. It is America's mess, too.
In 1821 President John Quincy Adams said America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Since World War II the U.S. has ignored that advice. We have the capacity to try to fix things in countries that have resources we want or governments we dislike, and we have used that capacity. The world has seen our hypocrisy even if the U.S. has not.
On February 27, the day before we started up this phase of the war with Iran, we were in negotiations to deal with Iran's nuclear facilities. Diplomats from Oman were on their way to Washington, D.C., with a draft agreement to freeze Iran's nuclear program. Ships passed through the international waterways of the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. Oil kingdoms pumped and refined oil and exported it. The U.S. was presumed to have such overwhelming military power that Iran did not dare threaten passage of commerce, nor threaten Gulf neighbors, nor threaten American facilities in the region. Oil was bought and sold in dollars, which meant that those sales got recycled back into U.S. Treasuries, which funded our deficits. The U.S. was presumed to have strong alliances with NATO countries and Middle East countries. American warships could be in the area as ominous threats to potential adversaries and as reassurances to countries dependent on our security architecture.
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| NY Times |
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| Even Murdoch's MAGA-oriented NY Post is reporting the damage |
Today, Iran and other countries in the region have learned the lesson that the U.S. would launch a surprise attack under the cover of negotiations. Iran has shown it can close first one and now two essential waterways of world commerce. Iran has shown Gulf monarchies that the U.S. cannot protect them. Iran has bombed American bases in the region, making them no longer usable, forcing our air power to retreat to the remote island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. China and Russia have drawn closer to Iran; China is now doing oil business in yuan. The Gulf monarchies are furious with us. Our NATO and other allies have told the U.S. that we are on our own there.
Meanwhile, the residual goodwill that Americans had for Israel has diminished dramatically. Candidates in both parties need to deny they are getting campaign help from AIPAC or other readily identifiable pro-Israeli groups. Our support for Israel enabled it to worsen its relations with the rest of the world and to reduce its security against rivals in the region.
Moreover, the U.S. made assassination of foreign leaders and decapitation of foreign governments, done under cover of peace negotiations, the policy and practice of the U.S. government. What could go wrong with that?
Amid this disaster of bad strategy and outcome, the fact that is moving our politics is that gasoline and diesel are 30% more expensive than they were last year. In Medford, Oregon gasoline is now $5.30 a gallon, up from $4.00. The U.S. thought we had "the cards" against Iran; we could bomb them at will. It turns out that Iran had the cards because they had leverage where it mattered; Americans will tolerate a giant reset of U.S. standing in the world, a matter of generational consequence, but we won't tolerate higher gasoline prices.
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