APROPOS my recent past column, “Oil, oil, oil – US defeat,” a colleague pointed out that the US action against Iran is essentially an undertaking of the United States military-industrial complex. Not having read up much on the subject, I have restricted myself from ever delving into the matter. The principle of accountability in journalism requires that you touch only on subject matter you have sufficient knowledge of.
I am a self-made writer void of any formal academic training. Is there any journalistic fiat requiring me to equate the war in Iran with the US military-industrial complex, otherwise I may not write about the war only in relation to oil?
One recent account points out that the term military-industrial complex was coined by former president Dwight Eisenhower. That got me recalling that the former president, then-general Eisenhower, commander of the Allied Forces in World War II, headed the Operation Overlord. The operation completely deceived the Nazis into believing that the advance of the Allies for liberating Western Europe would be landings of men and resources through warships on Pas de Calais, the nearest point in France from Great Britain across the English Channel. So, all Nazi preparations were centered on Pas de Calais. But when D-Day came, what took place was the magnificent drop of thousands upon thousands of paratroopers and glider troops on Normandy at which the Germans had no preparations whatsoever. And that was how the Germans were ultimately pushed back from France, onward to the liberation of the whole of Europe.
So, here we are on the worsening United States-Israel aggression against Iran. What does it profit us to know that such and such companies are branches of the United States enormous military-industrial complex, exercising nearly single effective control of the American social, economic and political life? These are facts, given reality about which there is nothing laymen, including this ordinary writer, can do to alter. And this reality is surely now at play in a frenzied pace as betrayed by US President Donald Trump’s evident desperation in the face of Iran’s unyielding resistance.
The issue is not what broadly comprise the United States military-industrial complex but how to thwart, nay, end, it’s aggression against Iran.
But first, why take up Iran’s cause?
The answer is basic.
Against braggadocio often voiced by President Donald Trump on the alleged US awesome power and invulnerability, Iran has had the guts to put up.
For that alone, Iran deserves all support.
Quite undeniably, there is in Iran’s struggle a resolve to do away with US military bases in the Gulf region. Such has been the Philippines’ own affliction for decades.
By virtue of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the 1947 Military Bases Agreement (MBA) which was killed by the Philippine Senate in 1991 has been effectively revived, circumventing the Philippine constitution, with the grant to America of nine sites inside camps of the Armed Forces of the Philippines for deployment of US troops and war facilities not subject to any inspection by Philippine authorities.
For all intents and purposes, those EDCA sites are America’s own.
America does not even pay rent for those sites.
With Iran’s relentless strikes at US military bases in the Gulf countries, the same catastrophe can befall the Philippines once the Iran war spreads into the Asia-Pacific.
It should be the fervent prayer of every Filipino that Iran wins the war right in the Gulf region.
America’s trashing early in the conflict should prompt the Marcos government to disentangle from the United States at long last. Such separation can result in the abrogation of all the military treaties binding the Philippines to America.
Alliances may seem not that easily broken. But this is true only in peacetime. In war where self-preservation is supreme, alliances happen accordingly as the sands of victory shift.
In 1943, when it became clear that Hitler would lose, Italy broke away from the Axis and joined the Allies.
In fact, in regard to the Middle East conflict, as Iran’s determination to combat the US-Israel attacks became manifest, President Pedro Sanchez of Spain had the courage to refuse the use of US military bases in Spain for attacks against Iran.
To Trump’s call for warships from allies to secure the Strait of Hormuz, he got a resounding “No!”
No help from NATO.
Nor from America’s Asia-Pacific allies.
How could the United States not lose?
Sun Tzu said in his Art of War:
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
Everything Trump does and says is quite the contrary.
“We see the drones, we see the missiles, we see everything. You think you can hit global energy, shut down the Strait (of Hormuz), scare the world. Not gonna happen, not under my watch. Mojtaba, you’re playing a very dangerous game. You have brought this region to the edge and you don’t have the strength to finish what you have started...”
Wasn’t it the United States that started it all? But then again, after turning the tables on Iran in this regard, Trump makes another turnaround, saying, “If you hit another oil site, if you hit another city, the response will be swift and will be devastating.”
As we would notice, every word contrary to Sun Tzu’s “Make your plans be as dark as night and when you move, strike like thunder.”
Trump’s blabber could only amount to a monster’s death spasms.
Note this aspect that has not earned much media play-up.
Superb intelligence work bared the imminence of the US-Israel attack. What Iran did was conduct decoy war exercises, using what appeared to be modern high-tech jet fighters and fighter helicopters. Much of US-Israel counter measures were, thus, for neutralizing what appeared to be high-end weaponry. After the first wave of the US-Israel strikes, what Iran retaliated with were old stockpiles of drones and missiles that needed much amount of expensive interceptors to contend with. Thus did the United States from the outset suffer huge losses in war expenditures already.
Reportedly, Iran’s stockpiles of modern hi-tech weaponry stay concealed in underground bunkers incapable of being detected even by US satellite radar system. These modern stockpiles are meant for use at appropriate times.
Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has demanded three conditions for ending the war: One, dismantle all US military bases in the Gulf; two, assure that the US will never again attack Iran; and three, pay by $500 billion as war reparations.
All three are definitely subtexts. They are doable only in the event of a US total defeat.
How will such defeat take place?
The answer is a subtext from Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in his disclosure that Iran’s nuclear capability “remains buried in the rubble” of the US one-week program called Epic Fury, now, having reached day 25 and counting, reading Epic Fear — for the nuclear blast to cripple America forever.
