The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Terry Bracy
America is at war again. Why? After listening to military and foreign policy experts, I conclude the best explanation is to keep Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu employed and out of jail.
The Israeli Prime Minister has clung to power in spite of indictments for bribery, fraud, and conflict of interest. His trial is on hold while Israel remains at war with Hamas and seemingly any other group Bibi can identify as an enemy. Meanwhile, he has sought a pardon without admitting guilt, a request his friend Donald Trump seconded.
With his country at war, Netanyahu remains safely in the captain’s chair.
Trump, himself, has thus far managed to stay one step ahead of the sheriff, as disclosures in the Epstein Files increasingly threaten to tie the President to sexual assault crimes against underage girls.
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The Middle East has been the Rubik’s Cube of American foreign policy since President Truman recognized the State of Israel in 1948. The justification relied both on Biblical boundaries and the urgent need to find a homeland for hundreds of thousands of European Jews who were displaced during the Holocaust. Palestinians greeted their arrival as an invasion and thus began a conflict still with the region today. America’s only notable success in reducing tensions there belongs to President Carter, whose historic Camp David Peace Accords of 1978 produced a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel.
President Trump and his advisors apparently learned nothing from our tragic experiences in the Iraq and Afghanistan that ended the lives of more than 7,000 American soldiers and left 60,000 wounded. The total human cost, when the secondary impacts of malnutrition and disease are included, is an almost unimaginable 4.5 million deaths. That is not to mention the estimated cost of $5 trillion. When asked by the press to explain the urgent threat that led to the U.S. attack on Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a rare moment of candor, admitted that Netanyahu had ordered an Israeli strike and Trump didn’t want to be second to act. To me this summons the picture of an inattentive walker stepping in a well-marked manhole.
Perhaps this is the best justification and Secretary of State could come up with when many Americans are calling the adventure “The Epstein War.”
Notwithstanding Trump’s ineptitude, the path to war had been heavily traveled by the Presidents who preceded him. In fact, modern American foreign policy is best defined by Occam’s Razor, the scientific and philosophical principle that always favors the simplest answer. When dealing with intense international conflict, recent Presidents, with the notable exception of Joe Biden, have found patience and negotiation far more difficult than unleashing a powerful military. The military-industrial complex about which President Eisenhower warned has fed Presidential power with an amazing assortment of weapons to employ. Military expenditures in FY 2026 will reach a trillion dollars before the costs of the Iran War are factored in.
The militarization of the United States will likely continue until Congress and the courts take steps to place limitations on the unitary Presidency. No executive should be allowed to initiate economic or military wars without the consent of Congress. Yet the MAGA majorities in today’s House and Senate are only too willing to pass on to our children the cost of these fateful actions. Not since the Korean Conflict have American taxpayers been forced to pay the bill. Military solutions to our foreign policy problems would occur far less often with the restoration of war taxes and the draft.
After failing to buy the Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump is in the process of rewriting his history as a warrior king. Last week, amidst the chaos in the Middle East, the New York Times ran a story about American military forces fighting drug traffickers in Ecuador.
Just weeks ago, we were treated to the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by a U.S. SWAT team that may killed as many as 80 palace guards, while offshore our agents have taken to the sky to kill scores of unidentified victims presumably transporting drugs in small boats. We are informed of these unauthorized killings by a chest-beating “Secretary of War” who, in the words of my departed dad, couldn’t find his fanny with both hands.
President Eisenhower, who led our forces in World War II, a war of necessity, had this to say: “A world in arms is not just spending money, but also the labor of its workers, the brilliance of its scientists, and the aspirations of its children.” Perhaps someone in the inner circle could tape these words to the President’s golf bag.
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Terry Bracy has served as a political adviser, campaign manager, congressional aide, sub-Cabinet official, board member and as an adviser to presidents.
