The United States is already at war
And it is very much a willing belligerent in a conflict of its own making.
Yesterday, Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah last week and its assassination in Tehran of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in July.
United States President Joe Biden instructed the US military to assist Israel in neutralising the missiles – not that Israel is not already equipped with various layers of ultra-sophisticated protection against incoming projectiles, which permit it to go about slaughtering folks left and right while suffering minimal damage in return.
During a news briefing at the White House, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced that US naval destroyers had “joined Israeli air defence units in firing interceptors to shoot down in-bound missiles”. Praising the “professionalism” of the Israeli military, Sullivan also lauded the “skilled work of the US military and meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack”.
Of course, not once has it occurred to the Biden administration to meticulously thwart Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where officially more than 41,000 people have been killed in less than a year although the true death toll is without a doubt exorbitantly higher. Nor has the oh-so-skilled US military deemed it necessary to interfere in the wanton butchery currently going down in Lebanon, where Israel just killed more than 700 people in less than a week.
And while many an international observer has sounded the alarm that the US could now be “dragged” into a regional war – warnings that will only increase after the Iranian missile attack – in reality the US is not really being “dragged” anywhere.
Rather, the US is in a position entirely of its own making. And the fact of the matter is that the US is already at war.
To be sure, even prior to the launch of the genocide, the US habit of flinging billions of dollars at the Israeli military on an annual basis long ago made it transparently complicit in Israeli efforts to disappear Palestine. Since October 7, the billions have only multiplied, despite Biden’s intermittent squawking about cutting off the supply of certain offensive weaponry to Israel.
In August, the Biden administration approved a $20bn weapons package to its Israeli partner in crime. And on September 26, the Reuters news agency reported Israel’s announcement that “it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support its ongoing military efforts and to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region”.
The package was said to include “$3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement… and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems including the Iron Dome anti-missile system, David’s Sling and an advanced laser system”.
In other words, Israel will be increasingly well-poised to “defend” itself against legitimate responses to its own actions – actions that quite literally qualify as terrorism.
In the end, it’s not rocket science: the financial and military support consistently extended to Israel by the US does not denote a country that is being “dragged” into a conflict. It denotes a country that is, for all intents and purposes, an active belligerent in the conflict.
The US also lent a helping military hand to Israel back in April when Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles in response to a lethal Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. On this occasion, too, Iran was widely cast in the role of terrorist aggressor – and never mind the retaliatory nature of its action.
It is meanwhile helpful to recall that the US has for decades done a fine job of “dragging” itself into regional war – the 2003 US pulverisation of Iraq comes to mind – so it should come as no surprise to once again find the country front and centre against a backdrop of mass slaughter. From American drone attacks on weddings in Yemen to rush shipments of bombs to the Israeli military in 2006 to aid in the ravaging of Lebanon, it seems the US has never met a Middle Eastern conflict it was not excited about.
And although the Biden administration continues to claim ad nauseam that it desires a ceasefire in Gaza, the road to a ceasefire in a case of genocide does not go through billions upon billions of dollars in weaponry to the genocidal party.
At the briefing on Tuesday, Sullivan warned that: “There will be severe consequences for this attack and we will work with Israel to make that the case.” Translation: The US will carry on doing its part to escalate regional havoc in tandem with Israel and force more, um, “consequences”.
Sullivan also stressed that this was a “fog of war” situation, and that he reserved the right to “amend and adjust as necessary” his initial assessment.
But in the fog of the latest war one thing, at least, is clear: the US is already a primary belligerent.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.