Wednesday, March 18, 2026

The Iran War: Possible Silver Linings?

No, I don't go for the Broken Windows Fallacy in the form of "if you look at it a certain way, war actually makes things better." But I do at least try to emulate the Life of Brian finale song:


So, two ways in which the idiotic war on Iran might benefit Americans:

  1. According to various polls, the US population's support for continued kow-towing to every demand from the Israel lobby has cratered over the last couple of years, and this war seems to be accelerating that trend. Even as soon as the mid-term elections, American politicians may no longer believe they can only get elected if they pledge undying and total loyalty to that hostile foreign power. That could end up saving American taxpayers billions of dollars per year in welfare checks to the Israeli regime, not to mention significant numbers of American lives the next time Netanyahu demands human sacrifices to his regional power plays.
  2. Until very recently, most regimes in most wars eschewed (at least in public) the practice of attempting to kill the political leaders of their adversary regimes. The US has been an exception (see e.g. Saddam Hussein and Moamar Gaddafi), but even the Russian and Ukrainian regimes have held to that (while accusing each other of not doing so). The open bragging about taking out e.g. Khamenei may be bringing that era to an end. If the Iranians can pull a tit-for-tat by taking out Netanyahu or Trump, or even some of their subordinates, there won't be any straight-faced grounds for complaint about it ... and that will probably cause future politicians to think about whether they're willing to put their own skins at risk by playing the war card.
Are those two possible salutary effects worth the costs? No. The war is still a net loss to anyone who's not a member of the elite political class. But they're at least something.

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