Once upon a time in what now seems to me like another universe, I took to the streets protesting the disastrous American war in Vietnam and, since I was then of an age to be drafted into the army (before it became an all-volunteer force), I even turned in my draft card in protest at a rally on Boston Common. But if you had told me then that, half a century later, my country would not only have fought that war in Vietnam to a disastrous conclusion, but would have fought no less disastrous losing wars in Afghanistan -- at 20 years, six months longer than the Vietnam one and the longest in American history -- and Iraq (7 years); that it would have spearheaded other conflicts from Libya to Iran; that it would have launched at least 41 airstrikes in Somalia -- yes, Somalia! -- so far in 2026, essentially ensuring that, by year's end, it will beat last year's record 124 strikes there (something you would only be likely to know about if you followed the work of Dave DeCamp at the website Antiwar.com)"
Whew! I'm out of breath and I didn't even finish that sentence, no less mention everyplace where my country has committed warlike acts in these years, most recently (other than and Venezuela and Iran) in Nigeria. Nor did I get to the Trump administration's latest devastating assault, in conjunction with Israel, on Iran that turned the atmosphere of its capital, Tehran, into a stinkhole disaster zone. As the Guardian reported: "Thick black smoke was still rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk, and the toxic air had filled the lungs as Tehran woke up after a night of airstrikes on the city's oil depots" -- while not just killing civilians (including a stunning number of primary school girls), but destroying classic cultural heritage sites!
And with all of that (and so much more) in mind, do check out TomDispatch regular David Bromwich's new piece on the nation (mine and his) that he labels "the most dangerous country in the world." Tom
The Most Dangerous Country
From 2003 to 2026 and Beyond
The joint US-Israeli killing of Iranian leaders on February 28th marked the second time in a year that the United States had used negotiations as a decoy for a surprise attack. On the pattern of Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, our own invasion of Iraq in 2003, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. under President Trump has indeed launched a criminal war of aggression. The run-up to the war, however, followed a discernible pattern. Throughout the months preceding it, the Trump administration was testing the American public's tolerance for just such an adventure.
First came the drone killings of alleged "narco-terrorists" on boats in the Caribbean Sea; then, the kidnapping of the President of Venezuela; and finally, the seizure of oil tankers said to originate from Venezuela (an act of piracy by any other name). Now, with the attack on Iran, the message to the world should be considered unmistakable. Nations concerned for their own survival, if they aren't already U.S. vassal-states, are likely to avoid negotiations with the Trump administration. And what else could be expected? Its behavior leaves no room for the common trust on which diplomacy depends. There are only two choices: surrender or strengthen your military in anticipation of war.
The United States is now widely judged to be the most dangerous country in the world. Machiavelli in The Prince advised all aspirants to the leadership of a state that it is good to be feared, but he added: take care that you are not more hated than feared.
We may already have crossed that line.
What, in all our history, could have led us to fall so far? The disaster of the Vietnam War offered a decade-long glimpse into such possibilities, but the last stage of this country's descent began with the invasion of Iraq. In early 2003, President George W. Bush told U.N. inspectors to leave that country because our bombing was about to begin. Had they been allowed to complete their search for supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, they would have established that such weaponry, the pretext for our invasion, was nonexistent.
Such actions have consequences. When an international Gallup poll in 2013 asked which country was the greatest threat to world peace, the United States finished in first place. (Iran and Israel were tied for fourth.) The question has not been asked again, but in view of the wars that followed, including NATO's regime-change bombing of Libya, a CIA-sponsored insurgency in Syria, U.S. bombing campaigns in Somalia, Sudan, and Nigeria, Washington's support for the destruction and mass killings in Gaza, and now the assault upon Iran, the answer to that poll today would probably be the same.
Lawless with New Laws
Imperial expansion generally comes with a loss of liberty at home. In the United States, the Patriot Act began that process in October 2001. Passed by Congress as an apparent response to the fears of a terrified populace just a month after the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., it was a remarkably comprehensive document to have been written so fast. The enhanced surveillance and security measures of the Patriot Act would, however, turn out to be just the opening chapter in a long series of abridgments of rights and anti-constitutional innovations for which the Global War on Terror served as an excuse. Nor were the tools of that war laid aside by later presidents, even when they struck a different posture.
Presidents of both parties extended the reach of our global war by reducing its visibility. Drone assassinations of presumed enemies, for instance, became a remarkably routine tactic of the Obama administration. And in Donald Trump's second term, ICE agents in American cities have brought the War on Terror home. The arrests may still be largely limited to non-naturalized immigrants and their more vociferous supporters, but nothing in the history of empire would lead one to suppose that such repressive measures (demanded in the name of "national unity") will cease to gather force. Contempt for legality is not just an international but a national tenet of Donald Trump's presidency.
Latent in the presidency itself has always been a risk of dictatorship. The capabilities associated with the office by its most distinguished advocate, Alexander Hamilton, are instructive here: activity, energy, dispatch, and secrecy. There have in truth been just three presidents in 250 years, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt, for whom most Americans can still feel an honest admiration. Coincidentally, they led the country during three of the very few American wars that could be justified without embarrassment. But even in the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the Second World War, the cost to civil liberties always proved high. Those wars were invariably used to justify an expansion of state power that would open the way for wars of choice.
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