People like to say that Near East politics is complex, but the war on Iran is blindingly simple. Aggression is immoral, as is participation in it. Israel’s war on Iran is a blatantly obvious, incontestable act of aggression, as is US participation in the war so far, along with any further participation. No one has bothered to provide even a semi-plausible justification for this war, no one can, and no one will. The whole thing is insane.

It’s time to cut our losses, no matter what the president has said or done, to get out of the war, and to end all assistance to Israel, military or otherwise, offensive or defensive. There really is no room for equivocations, procrastination, or half-measures here. No half-measures will get us fully out, and no equivocations will do justice to the immorality and imprudence of involvement. And there’s no time for procrastination. We simply have to get out, even if we’re attacked, and have to drop Israel in the process, no matter what happens to them as a result.

Tehran under Israeli attack, June 13, 2025 (photo credit: Mehr News Agency, Wikipedia).

At this point, Israel’s fate should not be America’s problem, or anyone’s problem, but theirs. Anyone who feels strongly enough about “standing with Israel” is invited to go there and make a stand at a safe distance from the rest of us. But don’t drag us into your wild-eyed crusade. And don’t bother playing the Holocaust or anti-Semitism cards. Eventually, even the best card trick gets old.

We’re now inexorably being drawn toward full scale regional war, regime change, and the real potential for escalation to the point of nuclear war. This is on top of mass murder in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, proxy wars in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine, the distant but very real prospect of war with China, and the rise of an anti-migrant police state at home. The reasons we’ve been given for involvement in the Iran war (and frankly, all the other ones) are a set of feeble, manipulative dogmas and transparent, flat-out lies. Civilized adults should be able to see through that. And civilized adults is what we claim to be.

If you’re an American, it’s past time to rouse yourself and act. Pick up the phone and/or write your Congressional representatives to demand withdrawal from the war, and (for a start) an end to our involvement in all of Israel’s wars. If we don’t impose a limit now, there will never be one. Human life demands limits. We can no longer afford complicity with those at war with them.