TryGOLD- Free
America has betrayed its global mission
Los Angeles Times
|April 05, 2026
With its war in Iran, the Trump administration is destroying the pillars of U.S. primacy and its legitimacy worldwide
PRESIDENT TRUMP and Pete Hegseth, center, during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
(CHIP SOMODE VILLA Getty Images)
FOR MANY YEARS, the U.S. foreign and security establishment has made the safety
of international trade a key argument for the benefits that U.S. global primacy brings to
the world, and the need to maintain that primacy.
This argument has often been made with specific reference to the security of energy
flows from the Persian Gulf — which was also among the reasons given for the need
to maintain U.S. military bases in the region.
The Trump administration is now destroying this pillar of U.S. primacy and its
international legitimacy — and it’s doing so with a majority of support from
Republicans in Congress and those in the think tank world. That the closure of the
Strait of Hormuz and the attacks on Gulf Arab energy production come from Iran
is true. It is also irrelevant.
This was a pure war of choice on the part of the administration. There was
no imminent or even feasible threat from Iran to the United States. The
administration previously claimed that last year’s attacks by the U.S. and Israel
had destroyed Iran’s nuclear installations. However, neither those attacks nor
the Trump administration’s assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Suleimani in
January of 2020 had led to Iranian retaliation against Gulf energy exports.
The Iranian government and innumerable Western experts-and, it seems,
several Gulf Arab governments had however repeatedly warned that a full-scale
attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel would lead to such retaliation.
This warning shouldn't have been remotely difficult for the Trump administration
to understand.
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