Sapping the will of Americans to remain dominant in world affairs will inevitably lead to a torpor at home, breeding depression and mass failure.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf stated on May 29, “We gain concessions not through dialogue, but with missiles…. The winner of any agreement is whoever is better prepared for war the day after it.” This is not a new insight but a cold historical truth about the conduct of diplomacy between adversaries. As Prussia’s Frederick the Great put it some three centuries ago, “Diplomacy without arms is like a concert without instruments.” On the surface, this implies that outcomes reflect the balance of power. But the key element in Ghalibaf’s concept of “better prepared” is the willingness to go to war, as Iran is not better prepared in terms of military capability after having been pounded by U.S. and Israeli airpower. Yet, Tehran presents an iron will to fight on, counting on domestic politics to derail America’s vastly superior war effort. There are alarming signs that the Iranian Shiite theocrats may be correct.
Consider the media’s attempt to highlight every Iranian action as a victory, making the U.S. effort appear to be a lost cause. Headlines matter in a society with short attention spans and a weakness for sensationalism. On May 20, The Mirror proclaimed, “Report finds that Iran downed 42 U.S. fighter jets as war costs top $29 billion.” When one reads “fighter jets,” what comes to mind are the highly capable fighter-bombers of the U.S. Air Force and Navy. But when one reads the actual Congressional Research Service report cited, over half of these losses (25) are merely drones. Only five of the aircraft lost were manned fighter-bombers actually shot down, and three of these were ‘friendly fire” from Kuwaiti air defenses that mistook our aircraft for Iranian weapons. Iran “downed” only two USAF aircraft, an F-15 on April 5 and an A-10 on April 6 with all aircrew rescued. Given that we conducted at that point over 15,000 air attacks on Iranian targets, that is an amazing testimony as to the capability of American forces to overcome what was an extensive Iranian air defense network; one based on Russian and Chinese systems, which did not prove at all effective.
Two MC-130 transport planes were self-destructed when they became stuck and could not take off during the rescue operations of an F-15 crewman. One KC-135 refueling tanker was lost in a midair accident during which another KC-135 was damaged. Five more KC-135s were damaged, along with an E-3 warning and control aircraft on the ground at the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, during an Iranian missile and drone attack. An F-35 was also damaged by Iranian ground fire but returned to base. So the details make the headline an outright lie, and the motive is obvious. As for the $29 billion price tag for the war — compare it to the $124.7 billion New York City budget for 2027 that Socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani released on May 12 ($16 billion of which is a line item for “fringe benefits”).
Mamdani’s antisemitism is well known and reflects his Democratic Socialists of America party. On Oct 7, 2023, the day Iran-backed Hamas terrorists slaughtered over 2,000 Israeli civilians and took hundreds more captive (most of whom died), the DSA claimed the terror attack was “not unprovoked” and “As socialists, we must act” to prevent Israeli from retaliating. When the air campaign to disarm the Tehran regime was launched, Ahmed Husain, a Shiite immigrant from Bahrain who sits on the DSA National Political Committee, conducted a video call to 1,000 activists demanding “hands off Iran” and “ending the U.S. empire.”
The Democratic Party has been veering in the direction of the DSA for years. With the single exception of Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Senate Democrats have voted in lockstep to enact Husain’s agenda to end the war so the Tehran regime can survive with its nuclear ambitions intact. Digging deeper, the Orwellian-named “progressive” wing of the party has since Oct. 7 taken a more hostile stand toward both American influence in the Middle East and the very existence of Israel. Jacobin magazine, an avowed Marxist publication that has taken its name from the pre-Marxian Terror of the French Revolution (thus embracing domestic political violence), has made the nonsense claim that the Democrats lost the 2024 presidential election because they did not make the accusation of Israeli “genocide” in Gaza a more central part of their campaign!
There is nothing like those proclaiming to be the last champions of democracy turning on Israel, the only democracy in the region, when it is under existential attack by the minions of a dictatorship as brutal as the Tehran regime. But the Left is never really about democracy, as the system it wants to impose is based on force and oppression. The hostility against Israel is because it is part of the Judeo-Christian civilization of the West, led now by the United States. A civilization whose success in creating the modern world cannot be doubted, but can be discredited and overthrown by propaganda and mob violence. It is not at all surprising to see among the rioters demanding the release of criminal aliens from an I.C.E. detention center in New Jersey people dressed in Palestinian garb. Crime in the streets is a revolutionary tactic as it breaks down order and spreads fear.
The Left has always preyed on children, whose innocence is seen as ignorance, and whose “open minds” can be filled with what Rush Limbaugh politely called “mush” when a nastier term originating from where the sun don’t shine is more accurate. Control of the schools has thus long been their central strategy. Children are the future, a phrase well known to our enemies. Consider DSA member Deb Cesualdo, the newly elected vice president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association — an affiliate of the National Education Association teachers union. She has called for an uprising against the “fascist” United States and has accused Israel of “genocide” while trying to exclude material about the Nazi Holocaust from classrooms. She has denounced national borders as a “construct of colonizers.” A fine message for the 250th anniversary of when our colonizing forefathers declared independence so they would have more freedom to expand and build America into history’s greatest example of true progress and human achievement, the envy of the world. No wonder feelings of patriotism among the young decline while in public schools. Fortunately, it recovers with maturity and experience in the real world.
Yet, we are still at a disadvantage when our enemies run loose amongst us. We have given various generations letters like X and Z, but in China they have Generation N, for Nationalism. Chinese youth have the same anxieties as American kids. Growing up is difficult, but the work ethic is crucial to getting it done. Few would doubt there is a gap in this regard across the Pacific. Beijing drums patriotism into its students, but in this case, state propaganda is based on truth. Chinese students know that they are not likely to succeed if the country they live in fails. Growth and the power to shape the future create opportunity. One can debate (and should) what policies produce the best results, but the principle cannot be disputed.
Interestingly, as historian Victor David Hanson has noted, “increasingly popular on the left and among the hate-Trump crowd on the right — is that the communist colossus will be forever ascendant… In this pessimistic view, China will soon replace America as the world’s predominant power.” But on the Left, is this a pessimistic view or an optimistic one since the decline of America is their goal? Sapping the will of Americans to remain dominant in world affairs will inevitably lead to a torpor at home, breeding depression and mass failure. The collapse of great nations starts from within before they succumb to external threats. We are in a testing time for America’s resolution and self-confidence.
William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who has worked for several Washington think tanks and on the staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications including for the Army War College, the U.S. Naval Institute, and the National Defense University, among others.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 