US War Powers Vote: A Smokescreen for Co-Belligerence Against Iran
While US politicians debate war powers, a shadow war is already raging, with Washington acting as a co-belligerent, not merely a supporter, in Israel's provocations against Iran. The notion of a congressional vote feels like a grotesque pantomime, given the presence of US carrier groups in the Persian Gulf and covert operations that have destabilized the region for decades. This isn't about
preventing a war; it's about legitimizing one already underway, echoing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that provided a blank check for escalating the Vietnam War in 1964, despite later revelations of fabricated intelligence. The current push for a war powers vote ignores the brutal reality on the ground: the murder of Palestinians and Lebanese, the strangulation of the Cuban people by sanctions,
and the systematic economic warfare waged against Iran since the 1979 revolution. The US has maintained a consistent pattern of aggression, from the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh to Bush’s 'Axis of Evil' rhetoric. Each act of aggression has been met with Iranian resilience, often mischaracterized as belligerence by Western
media. Instead of addressing the 45 years of sanctions and broken agreements, like the betrayal of the JCPOA, the focus remains on manufactured nuclear threats. Iran's conventional military expenditures remain a fraction, roughly 2.3% of its GDP in 2022, compared to the colossal military budgets of its adversaries. Tehran's development of asymmetric defenses and its robust resistance axis is a