Denmark

Impressive commitments – but now it’s time to fight!

Wednesday 2 September 2026, by SAP Executive Committee

The Red-Green Alliance’s negotiation team managed to secure some impressive commitments in the newly formed government’s policy programme. In order to realise these commitments, we must now mobilise the opposition and the left-wing movements. [1]

We imagine virtually everyone was impressed by the mark that Alternativet [the Green Party], and perhaps especially the Red-Green Alliance, managed to make on the new government’s policy platform.

Impressed by scope of the commitments: I.e. the immediate, albeit temporary, halt to any expansion of conventional pig farming and the ceasing of tail docking and extreme breeding; the redistribution of agricultural subsidies; the investment of 4 billion DKK (over €133 million) into free dental care aiming for free dental care for everyone by 2035; making buses and trains across the country free for everyone up to the age of 22, and cutting VAT on food by half and removing VAT from fruit and vegetables entirely.

And also impressed by the number of positive fingerprints. There is simply a wealth of good intentions and a long row of more or less concrete promises in the government’s policy programme. Not just in the areas of agriculture and the environment, but across a long list of areas ranging from schools in remote areas and the victims of social security reforms to fairer conditions for trade unions.

Freedom to oppose

Almost more importantly, it was made clear that the Red-Green Alliance and the Alternative are entirely free to take a relentless stance against all the neoliberal, climate-destructive and right wing policies which, quite as expected, were also set out in the government’s programme. For example, the tax cuts for companies and shareholders and for those with the highest incomes; even accompanied by minor tax increases which disproportionately affect those with the very lowest incomes. The continued xenophobic immigration and integration policy, the absurd 5 per cent of GDP spent on military spending, the unchanged policy on Palestine, and so on.

Similarly, we are free to criticise the climate policy, which, on the whole, unfortunately remains catastrophically lax by ignoring the 2030 target and setting the 2035 target at a paltry 85 per cent reduction. The government’s platform only pays lip service to Denmark’s global consumption-based carbon footprint, which is an entirely different and far more embarrassing matter. The fact that not even the opening of new oil digging sites is being halted exposes the fact that Denmark’s climate hypocrisy continues.

Of course, the government’s policy platform will do nothing to address this problem. Because – despite the green rhetoric – we are dealing with a government whose primary objective is to stimulate endless capitalist growth, preferably based on cheap green energy in enormous quantities and by the rapid roll-out of AI –and with a declared openness to the introduction of nuclear power in Denmark.

The experiences of the Red-Green Alliance in relation to the government

If the Red Green Alliance did not have this freedom to simultaneously act as the left-wing opposition, it would, of course, be a political disaster to give political support for this government. But we do have that freedom, as Denmark has a negative parliamentarian system. That is why it was the right decision to let the Social Democratic-Reformist-Petite Bourgeoisie coalition come to power; to secure as many political commitments as possible from the situation rather than risk facing something worse.

Despite the clear centre-right majority in the Parliament, this government is not fundamentally different from governments for which RGL has previously provided parliamentary support. Take, for example, the Thorning government (2011-2015), where Margrethe Vestager certainly did not wield the rich’s baton any less than Lars Løkke does now. There we learnt – the hard way – that it was important to be in clear opposition. We were on the barricades in tough battles against the government, including in the teachers’ labour dispute and against the privatisation of the electricity company. We also learnt that we might need to be more willing to bring down such a government in situations where there was a shift to the left amongst the population.

Between 2019 and 2022, we sought to draw on the lessons learnt from the Thorning era to set limits on the bourgeois tendencies of the Social Democratic government by means of an internal so-called ‘memorandum of understanding’. That period was unusual due to the coronavirus pandemic. But we must at least acknowledge that, even though the Red-Green Alliance, armed with this document, secured a number of concessions – whilst formally remaining just as independent as we are now – the party came across too much as a supporting party rather than an opposition party. This applied, for example, to the series of climate agreements which, despite many fine words, formed the framework for the ‘hockey stick model’ and the Danish climate hypocrisy with which we are still living.

Has the Red-Green Alliance succeeded?

The RGA negotiating group has been open about the fact that it is not our policy, but that of the government and the centre-right parliamentary majority, which is reflected, for example, in the government’s policy on Palestine, in its immigration policy with the plans of opening asylum-processing facilities in Rwanda, in the anti-social tax cuts, and so on.

However, in the external communications from the Red-Green Alliance, it must be said that there has been room for enthusiasm – to such an extent that one could say we have oversold our influence and left an overly positive impression of the government’s platform as a whole. For example, it does not provide an accurate description of the new government when Pelle Dragsted (spokesperson for the RGA) apparently presents it at a meeting of the European left as a major step forward for the ‘Tax the Rich’ movement.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that all the positive promises in the government’s policy programme will be fulfilled automatically. Many of them are vague and/or unfunded. It is rather worrying that many of the specific objectives are explicitly not to be achieved within this term of office – not even in the form of clear interim targets.

Even in the most promising area, animal welfare, the deadline for phasing in compliance with the statutory ban on tail docking has been set for 2030, which is after the next election, and the deadline for ending extreme breeding practices has been set for 2035.

The VAT reductions are already being postponed until 2030. The reforms to social security benefits, etc., will reportedly require a great deal of ‘back-and-forth’ before they are implemented. We must be prepared to exert massive pressure on the government, or many of the long-term promises will remain shelved in committees up until the next general election, where they then risk being scrapped altogether.

We also run the risk that the government will attempt to link the fulfilment of its promises to the Red-Green Alliance with ‘funding’ measures that miss the social mark entirely. Løkke, minister of finance from a right-wing party, has, after all, made it a condition that the rich should not have to pay, but rather be pampered.

So there may only be room for enthusiasm – and there will certainly be a great need for movements that fight fiercely for their cause, with this government as their expected opponent.

There’s nothing wrong with enthusiastically celebrating these fine promises! It’s fine to highlight them – to promote them as realistic goals in the class struggle. For example, the promises of free dental care and a complete overhaul of agriculture. The enthusiasm these promises arouse is an excellent springboard for waging a struggle to have these demands met. It will by no means be easy for the government to shove these hopes back into the coffin – and we must make the most of that momentum.

But statements such as ‘The Red-Green Alliance has now delivered on its election promises’ is misleading and creates false hopes. And if we phrase things as though this is something Pelle and the others have already sorted out or will sort out in the Parliament (provided we just remember to vote for them or donate €1,5 a month) – then we are sending out completely wrong signals. For the Red-Green Alliance’s most important task is not to maximise the number of votes, but to organise and mobilise people. Not make people pin their hopes on politicians, but to become active themselves in pursuit of their own interests and views.

From enthusiasm to action

That is why enthusiasm must be used as a driving force for action.

The green movement – which bears the main responsibility for ensuring that pigs and drinking water were included reasonably well in the government’s policy platform – must be strengthened by us all to become even stronger, whilst we see the requirements through to the end. Otherwise, it could well end up with Løkke and the agricultural lobbyists undoing most of the ‘achievements’. That is why we must not give the impression that this matter has already been settled.

There will probably also be grounds for a social movement – or at least protests – rejecting tax cuts for the rich and tax increases for the poorest – as a precursor to VAT reductions that might lead to falling prices, but only in a year or two or even four.

We must use the enthusiasm generated by the many incentives in the government’s policy platform to mobilise support for the fight to make them a reality. Right now, the focus is on the fact that we on the left – not the far-right – are the ones actually trying to improve the livelihoods of those who are struggling financially. That is why people will listen if we call for action on this issue.

And of course, we won’t stop there! When VAT falls but prices do not fall to the same extent – that presents an obvious opportunity to demand price controls – and perhaps even to organise them ourselves. Danish retail prices have long been the highest in Europe and profit margins in the grocery sector are high.

Similarly, a victory over the pig farmers will be a victory for the entire green movement – which can strengthen the green struggle in general. It is a movement that can and will set a completely different (and urgently needed) growth and climate agenda than that of the government. An agenda that challenges the profit-driven approach which is currently driving the world towards the abyss.

And the struggle for Palestine continues! Now, as before, with the Red-Green Alliance – but unfortunately not the government – on the right side of the barricade.

Victories and mass mobilisations can be a ‘grinding mill of the class struggle’, which we’d love to set in motion, and through that sidelining the far-right completely. And when it becomes necessary and possible to topple the government, the way will be paved for something truly red and green.

A potential horror story

So much for that optimistic, enthusiastic and hopeful vision of the future. Unfortunately, things could also turn out quite differently: If the Red-Green Alliance becomes so fixated on having to rely only on negotiations in the Parliament that – in order to ‘deliver on our promises’ – we vote for one dubious ‘package’ after another, we will end up merely chasing our own tails.

If we allow ourselves to be pressured into voting for austerity budgets because there are signs of an economic downturn, and Løkke demands that rich and poor alike should share the burden.
And if the Red-Green Alliance wants to ‘save’ the government at any cost – because we’re hoping that in 5 or 10 years’ time it will fulfil the promises made to us in its government programme.
Well, then enthusiasm won’t last long. Frustration and anger will spread and, quite rightly, be directed towards the government. But also at its (in this nightmare scenario) ‘loyal supporting party’, the Red-Green Alliance. In that situation, we’ll quickly be seen as, and become, part of ‘the system’, ‘the Copenhagen elite’, who make the little people pay whilst the rich get by just fine.

In that situation, however, there are other forces that are only too happy to step in as the opposition. Other forces that will give voice to the justified anger – in their own way. So it may well be the xenophobic and/or neoliberal far-right that, riding on the back of the people’s anger, take over Government after the next election. And then there probably won’t be many of those 5- to 10-year promises that hold true. Neither for pigs nor for people.

21 August 2026

P.S.

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Attached documents

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Footnotes

[1] Photo: Sten Porse, license: CC-BY 3.0

Denmark

• In Search of Russia’s Lost Opposition
• Defend Greenland against the US’s raid - without any illusions about the Kingdom of Denmark and the EU
• The Unity List remains Copenhagen’s largest party
• Return from Ukraine
• Visiting a secret anarchist warehouse in Ukraine

• SAP Executive Committee

  SAP is the Danish section of the Fourth International.

• 
  
  
  

Help Antiwar.com Expose the War Machine’s Abuses at Home and Abroad

by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Sep 2, 2026 | Antiwar.com

Some people say that being anti-war is to be against “the troops” – the Americans who in the past were drafted to fight and today volunteer to serve. But that is a superficial criticism that distracts from what the criticism of U.S. wars really should be.

Many of us believe in a strong national defense. That requires a fully equipped and properly disposed military of men and women in uniform to defend the country from attack. The “anti” in “anti-war” is a healthy skepticism of the state abusing its power to wage wars of choice, typically in service of ideological and corporatist agendas that have nothing to do with safeguarding Americans. In fact, in many cases, Washington’s overseas interventions over the last century have reflected an imperialist urge that would have been abhorred by the American founders. These wars have blown back domestically to make our communities less safe and less free. Citizen soldiers in the form of our state National Guards were exploited to extend the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are still being taken away from responsibilities at home to be sent to – and killed – in far flung active duty operations that most Americans know little about.

Today we hear about the deplorable conditions on U.S. Navy vessels in the Middle East. President Donald Trump’s decision to take the nation to war with Iran, without Constitutional approval, and to deploy ships to maintain an illegal blockade far beyond appropriate and safe measure for the men and women on them, is another indication of how Washington and its masters come before those who serve. Top Pentagon officials and the president himself have chosen to downplay the USS Abraham Lincoln scandal and engage in what seems to be coordinated attacks on the press sharing the sailors’ stories. This should raise alarms for everyone, not just the service members and their families. More than ever, we are convinced that Washington and its wars have nothing to do with us. Just see how dirty the powerful fight to protect their own interests.

But on a positive note, today’s rank and file, after 20 years of war, access to social media and more real time information – and more important, alternative, independent news coverage – are thinking more critically about the war policies that affect them and their families. Veterans are seeking out more data, they are writing about their experiences, and they are becoming more proactive in protecting each other, whether that be on health care, improving conditions on base, or pursuing reforms that challenge a military industrial complex that sends their peers into reckless adventures overseas, often unprepared and underserved. One of the biggest under-the-radar stories is that the military industrial complex puts more money into big weapons systems, including ships, that underperform and are even dangerous for our soldiers, Marines and airmen, than they do in outfitting and training its human resources. Why? Because it’s all about the industry, the contractors, Wall Street, and the E-Ring, not the people.

Antiwar.com has become one of the best places for all Americans – including our military and veterans – to get information about this racket. About the secretive military operations overseas, blowback on the homeland, the harm the government is putting our uniformed men and women in everyday, and how they are not taken care of when they get home. This is information that makes people mad, but can also spur awareness and action. Continuing to support Antiwar.com allows it to reach more readers, cultivate new writers, maybe even some who thought “anti-war” was not for them. The fact is that the Washington war machine’s abuses are far reaching. We need a forum that speaks for everyone and anyone who has had enough.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Editorial Director of Responsible Statecraft and Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute. She was a regular news writer and reporter for Antiwar.com from 2009 to 2014. She served for three years as Executive Editor of the The American Conservative magazine, where she had been reporting and publishing regular articles on national security, civil liberties, foreign policy, veterans, and Washington politics since 2007. From 2013 to 2017, Vlahos served as director of social media and online editor at WTOP News in Washington, D.C. She also spent 15 years as an online political reporter for Fox News at the channel’s Washington D.C. bureau, as well as Washington correspondent for Homeland Security Today magazine.

Baiting Turkey: Israel’s Strategy in Syria

by Thomas S. Karat | Aug 31, 2026 | Antiwar.com

The base at Abu al-Duhur had been dead for thirteen years. Wrecked in the Syrian war, out of service since 2012, its runways cratered and its hangars stripped, it sat in Idlib province about 60 kilometers from the Turkish border, useful to no air force. On the night of August 18 eight Israeli missiles fell on it. Israel said it had struck to stop Turkish troops from moving in.

Six days before the strike, Israel had gone to Washington with the same warning. Its intelligence, it said, indicated there might be Turkish movement into the airfield. The Americans took the warning and ran it down through their own agencies. Tom Barrack, Donald Trump’s ambassador to Ankara and his envoy for Syria, described what came back. “We all did our due diligence. We went back to our respective intelligence agencies. The answer we got is, no, that’s not happening.”

Then Barrack said the thing an envoy is not supposed to say in public about an ally. “One theory is they were just baiting Turkiye.” He called the strike aggressive and timed, and he named what it was timed to. Israel votes on October 27.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, called Barrack’s account “full of inaccuracies” and said the intelligence had been clear. Both cannot be true. Either Turkey was about to seize a derelict runway and the closest ally Israel has could not find the evidence, or it was not, and a NATO member’s base was bombed on a claim that dissolved the moment anyone checked it. The envoy who checked it settled the matter to his own satisfaction on a podcast, five days after the missiles landed, by guessing at the motive.

The motive was on a billboard before it was in the air. Along Tel Aviv’s main highway, above the traffic, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had appeared beside Iran’s supreme leader, the head of Hezbollah and the mayor of New York, under a single line: “They want Netanyahu to lose. Don’t let them win.” Benjamin Netanyahu is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be tried for corruption. His Likud has been falling in the polls. Trump has told him to wind down the wars on Iran and Lebanon that filled his last two years. A man who runs as the wall between his country and its enemies had run short of enemies he was still allowed to fight.

Turkey filled the gap, and filled it safely. Iran could be bombed toward collapse. Turkey cannot. It holds NATO’s second-largest army, its president has a warm line to the American one, and a quarrel with it can be conducted in airstrikes on other people’s territory and in warnings traded through the press, at no risk of a war that reaches Israeli cities. The opposition read the timing on sight. Yair Lapid, who backed the strike, ridiculed the noise around it: “if you struck, stay quiet.” Ehud Barak wrote that the whole escalation smelled of a plan to fight the election on a war footing.

What is less often said is that the man on the billboard had his own use for it. Through the past year Erdoğan jailed Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Istanbul mayor who was his most dangerous rival, and opened a settlement with the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan meant to draw Turkey’s Kurds out of the opposition and clear the path to a new constitution, one that might let him run again after his term ends in 2028. An Israel behaving as an aggressor on Syrian soil handed him a cause under which Kurds, Islamists and nationalists could stand behind the same government. His officials called the strike “cheap politics” for Netanyahu, which it was, and treated it as a gift, which it also was. Barrack, once more on the record, said both leaders were “in a political campaign,” each running toward a vote, each knowing what his voters wanted to see. A confrontation with two authors is harder to call off than one, because calling it off costs both of them something at home.

None of which makes the underlying quarrel invented. A year before the strike, a committee Netanyahu had appointed under his former acting national security adviser, Jacob Nagel, told him to prepare for direct war with Turkey. The Syrian threat, the report said, “could evolve into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat.” It urged raising the defense budget by up to 15 billion shekels a year and buying the long-range aircraft such a war would require. After October 7 Israel had already traded deterrence for prevention: not to wait for a threat and answer it, but to destroy it before it forms. Abu al-Duhur was that rule carried out on concrete. Hit the runway while it is still only a runway, before Turkish soldiers arrive and turn it into a piece of NATO. The rehearsal was on the record too. In the spring of 2025 Turkish teams had surveyed the airfields at T4, Palmyra and Hama for a deeper presence, and Israel had struck each in turn.

The legal cover was being drafted while the fires were still out at Abu al-Duhur. Two days after the strike a former Israeli official, Shay Gal, wrote in the Adelson-owned daily Israel Hayom that Turkish soldiers in Syria would be, in plain terms, targets. Article 5 of the NATO treaty, he argued, “protects Turkish territory; Turkish troops do not carry that territory with them” onto Syrian ground. Israel had acted, he wrote, “before Turkish military depth matured.” The paper is owned by Miriam Adelson, the largest single donor to the American president. An opinion column in such a place is not a fringe position tossed into the void. It is a balloon released over friendly airspace to see who salutes.

Underneath the doctrine and the theater lies something plainer, which is money. Turkey’s arms exports reached about 10 billion dollars in 2025, close to half again what they had been the year before, and climbed another 26 percent through the first seven months of 2026, to 11.2 billion dollars over the trailing year. Ankara now sells something near two-thirds of the world’s armed drones. The pitch it makes is the one Israel has made for decades to the Gulf and the wider Arab world: capable weapons, delivered faster and cheaper than the Western competition, to the same buyers. And the rivalry runs straight through Netanyahu’s own telephone. Before Trump flew to Ankara in July, Netanyahu called him to press him not to let Turkey back into the F-35 program or sell it the F110 engines its home-built KAAN fighter needs. To do so, he told Fox and afterward CNN, would “upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority.” The sentence is honest about what is being defended. Air superiority is a weapon over Israeli cities and it is also a catalogue, and the customers are the ones Turkey is taking.

The two designs for Syria cannot both hold on the same soil. Turkey wants a single Syrian state under Ahmed al-Sharaa, its Kurdish militias folded into a national army, its refugees sent home, its northern border shut. Israel wants Syria kept weak and split, its minorities shielded from Damascus, its south left open to Israeli entry. The foreign minister in Jerusalem has been clear that Turkish radar and air defense and aircraft would close skies that Israeli jets now cross at will, and would make a future strike on Iran harder to fly. Al-Sharaa, pressed from both sides, takes Turkish training and reconstruction while quietly thinning the Turkish-shaped units inside his own army, unwilling to become anyone’s client. Syria is not where the rivalry is happening. Syria is what it is over. The place it is most likely to tear is the Kurdish seam, where a force armed by Washington is being pushed into a state that Turkey wants it dissolved by, and that Israel would sooner see it armed against.

That Turkey is not Iran is the danger, not the reassurance. It carries NATO’s second army, a new mutual-defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and a president nearer to Trump than any in years. To bomb a base that Turkey backs is to strike at the rim of the alliance that underwrites Western security, and the alliance has no agreed answer for the morning after. The shield may bring the collision on rather than hold it off. If NATO membership tempts Ankara to push a little deeper into Syria, trusting that Israel will not risk hitting a protected army, and if that trust pushes Israel to strike sooner, before the protection attaches, the deterrent has turned into its opposite. Washington sees it. Barrack has spent weeks trying to build a channel among Israel, Turkey and Syria so that jets do not meet by accident. Israel does not want the channel. A formal mechanism, its officials fear, would set into intelligence-sharing and bind their hands, taking from them the freedom to strike whenever they alone decide a threat is forming.

Netanyahu once ran precisely such a channel with Vladimir Putin, to keep Israeli and Russian pilots from firing on each other over Syria, and it held for close to a decade. It worked because both sides wanted it to. This time one side is bombing empty runways two months before an election and filing the result under deterrence.

For a generation the region was arranged on the belief that Israel stood at its center, wired to Washington, its supremacy the fixed point the Abrahamic accords and all that followed were built around. That belief is coming apart. The strike on Abu al-Duhur was not the confident act of a power sure of its place. It was the nervous act of one no longer sure of it, a country cratering a dead airbase to prove a dominance that a NATO member’s drones and export ledgers are quietly taking away. The threat the missiles answered could not be found by the ally sent to look for it. What could be found was the billboard, the trial, the sinking polls, the rival in an Istanbul cell, the constitution still to be rewritten in Ankara, the engines Netanyahu wants Turkey never to hold. Two men who need the same war moved a step nearer to it, on land that belongs to neither, over a runway no one was using.

Thomas Karat writes investigative work published at karat.substack.com and the Libertarian Institute, drawing on a corporate career and academic training as a behavior analyst to examine how institutions manufacture consent and influence.

Pete Hegseth: Militarism’s Ideologue

The Secretary of Defense mistakes rhetoric for strategy.

by Nolan Denaro | Sep 1, 2026 | Antiwar.com

Reality doesn’t always line up with our wishes. For Pete Hegseth, this lesson has been learned the hard way. Six months into his war with Iran, top military officials are warning the Secretary of Defense that prolonged fighting would be “unsustainable,” according to new reporting from The Washington Post.

These officials are echoing sentiments that have been repeated for months within the administration. Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had advised the White House before the conflict that a large-scale military confrontation with Iran posed serious risks, particularly because of the U.S.’ depleted munitions stockpiles and a lack of support from regional partners.

Rather than heed these warnings, Washington foreign policy elites chose to proceed with a reckless disregard for the facts, guided by an ideological drive to reshape the world in our image – or, perhaps more accurately, Israel’s. Pete Hegseth is one such ideologue, as demonstrated by his rhetorical record throughout the conflict.

The administration’s entire approach to this war has been stylistically Hegsethian. The tirades against the press, the administration’s unceasing – and undue – confidence, and the rigorous enforcement of a strict narrative are all hallmarks of Pete Hegseth’s brutish approach, rather than the calculated strategy one may expect to see from Marco Rubio or JD Vance.

Hegseth’s style plays to the instincts of an older generation of Republican voters, one which believes that to even question the military is to commit a grave offense. Older cohorts of conservatives – which tend to be the Republican Party’s most consistent base –  are fervently supportive of the war.

As soon as the first bombs were dropped, the narrative was enforced. The case for war was not an intellectually rigorous one, but this is a common feature of government propaganda. It primarily exists not to convince the American public to support a policy, but to emotionally manipulate them. To this end, the war’s initiators must act with a level of bravado and confidence capable of convincing the average person that “this person knows what he’s doing.” It doesn’t mean he does, however. This distortion has been perfectly embodied by the rocky past six months at Hegseth’s Pentagon.

Hegseth has built a reputation for his aggressive style. During press conferences in the Iran war’s early stage, he made a habit out of using emotionally charged language to evoke an “us vs. them” mentality within Americans. On March 2, Hegseth called this war “our retribution,” saying “the regime who chanted ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ was gifted death from America, and death from Israel.” In a press conference a few days later, Hegseth seemed to fetishize violence, describing the U.S. operation as “death and destruction from the sky, all day long.”

In a display of his grotesque lust for power, Hegseth also said “we are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

There has been a severe shortage of seriousness from this administration in its messaging on this conflict. In a 60 Minutes appearance just days after the war was launched, Hegseth shrugged off concerns about the risks of this engagement, saying “nobody’s putting us in danger.” He followed this dismissive statement with an even more unsettling one, threatening that “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re going to live.”

Devoid of any substance, Hegseth’s statements amount to little more than letters to Santa. He is essentially “making a wish” and pretending it’s a sound assessment of military reality. Yes, troops were and continue to be in danger. Due to a shortage of defensive munitions, U.S. troops at bases across the Middle East have been placed at greater risk of being hit by Iranian missiles. 18 American troops have been killed since the war began.

In another outburst, Hegseth scolded Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) in an April 29 congressional hearing for daring to question the war’s length. “Shame on you,” Hegseth said.

“The way you stain the troops,” he went on, “calling this a quagmire two months in… handing propaganda to our enemies.” Hegseth urged that “statements like that are reckless to our troops.”

“Who are you cheering for here?”

Behind the aggressive diction is a man without a plan. Accusing others of wrongdoing – for simply questioning his policy, mind you – helps deflect from the fact that he launched a war that has been an unmitigated disaster. It wouldn’t be a Washington crisis without the routine unwillingness to aim critique inward. The blame must always be shifted – no matter how illogically – to those who opposed the policy. Consider John McCain angrily telling Ron Paul “let us win” in 2008, implying that Paul’s anti-war advocacy had somehow contributed to the failures of the Iraq War.

This degree of blame-shifting is not usually a side-effect of victory. In Hegseth’s case, it is the result of having been trapped in a state of denial from beginning to end. First came the denial that there was any chance the Iranian regime would survive, and the assumption that his cartoonishly optimistic predictions would not come back to bite him. Now comes the denial that this disaster had anything to do with the decisions he personally made.

One of the war hawks’ fundamental miscalculations is that power equals strategy. As has been demonstrated in Iran, bombing can become ineffective, and Hegseth’s bellicose remarks alone cannot change that. Bravado and bluster are no substitute for rational thinking. In situations this dire, we are in desperate need of cool heads who can see reality clearly. Ideological militarists – guided by ghastly rhetoric rather than a coherent strategy – have led us down a bad path. We would be wise to acknowledge reality before it smacks us in the face.

Nolan Denaro is a political analyst, writer, and host of “The Quest For Clarity” podcast, available on YouTube and Spotify. He is a columnist at Antiwar.com, and his work has been published by Responsible Statecraft, the Libertarian Institute, The Daily Caller, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He writes on U.S. foreign policy, economics, and current events, with a particular focus on war and imperialism. He writes opinion pieces on his Substack, and you can follow him on X @nolandenaro. Nolan can be reached for correspondence at nolansdenaro@icloud.com.

The Iran War’s Costly Cycle of Retaliation

Each U.S. strike may impose costs on Tehran while creating new commitments for Washington.

by Timothy Hopper | Sep 3, 2026 |Antiwar.com

On August 30, U.S. forces struck two Iranian missile launchers on Larak Island near the Strait of Hormuz, saying the systems posed a threat to shipping. Iran answered by launching ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Jordan. The exchange revived a seemingly simple question: What is the next response supposed to change? In the war with Iran, the relationship between military action and political results is neither linear nor predictable. A strike may destroy a target while changing Tehran’s calculations and triggering costs elsewhere. For Washington, the issue is therefore not simply choosing the next target, but determining whether each action moves the United States closer to a political objective or merely creates the conditions for another round.

The problem lies in the gap between the geography of an attack and the geography of its consequences. The United States can choose where to apply force, but it cannot exercise the same control over where it will bear the resulting cost. An attack in Iran can lead to pressure on U.S. forces elsewhere in the region, threats to partners and allies, disruption of shipping, and higher energy costs. Recent fighting around the Strait of Hormuz has shown how quickly military exchanges can spill into maritime traffic and oil markets. A limited operation can therefore acquire a reach far beyond its initial target.

That does not mean Washington should avoid using force. Deterrence without the ability to impose costs has little credibility, and failing to respond can also carry risks. If Tehran concludes that U.S. threats will not be enforced, it may judge further action to be less costly. The real choice is not between “responding” and “not responding,” but between responses that serve a defined political purpose and those that simply sustain the cycle. A credible response must impose a meaningful cost while avoiding a situation in which Washington has to strike again merely to prove the credibility of the previous strike.

This is why the meaning of “response” becomes more complicated once force is used. If Washington attacks to restore deterrence, success depends not only on the damage inflicted on Iran but on what Tehran does afterward and what new obligations the United States assumes. If Iran retaliates against U.S. forces, threatens allied infrastructure, or disrupts vital regional routes, Washington’s next decision becomes less independent. Force protection, allied defense, and freedom of navigation all enter the calculation. Each mission may be defensible on its own, but together they can create commitments that were not part of the original objective.

The costs of conflict are therefore generated well beyond the battlefield. Greater threats to U.S. personnel require more protection and readiness. Greater risks to partners increase pressure for additional security support. Insecurity along shipping routes can raise the costs of trade and energy. Even if Washington retains the operational upper hand, it may simultaneously enlarge the strategic responsibilities it must carry. Tactical success can be measured by whether a target was destroyed; strategic success must be measured by whether the United States emerges safer, with more freedom of action and fewer – not more – obligations.

That distinction also makes the definition of victory more demanding. Destroying a military target is an operational achievement. But if preserving the result requires more deployments, a higher state of alert, and broader protection of regional interests, the military gain has not necessarily become a strategic one. Deterrence is not measured only by the intensity of a strike. It succeeds when the adversary’s calculations change enough that further force becomes less necessary. If each operation requires another operation to validate the previous one, American power can become a mechanism for perpetuating the conflict rather than ending it.

This is how mission creep often develops. It rarely begins with a formal decision to enter a long war. More often, a sequence of individually limited steps accumulates: a strike to answer a threat, a deployment to protect forces, support for an ally, and another operation to secure shipping or other vital interests. The U.S. experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan showed how missions can expand beyond their original purpose without a single moment when the enlarged commitment is clearly announced. Each step may appear reasonable by itself; together they can produce a mission that did not exist at the outset. The cost is not only greater expenditure, but reduced freedom to disengage.

The Iran war makes that danger sharper because the two sides are vulnerable in different ways. The United States possesses far greater striking power, but it also maintains forces, bases, partnerships, and economic interests across the region that require protection. Iran does not need to match U.S. firepower directly to impose costs. It can distribute pressure across different points and force Washington to defend several interests at once. That does not amount to Iranian military superiority. It means military superiority does not translate automatically into political control. The United States may inflict greater damage while spending more resources and attention managing the consequences.

Washington’s hardest test, then, is not whether it can deliver the next blow. It is whether it can identify the point at which deterrence has been restored and further operations are no longer necessary. The United States must be able to defend its forces and interests, support allies, and respond to direct threats. But each action should be tied to a clear answer to four questions: What behavior is Washington trying to change? What cost is sufficient to change it? What additional commitments could the response create? And at what point does the mission end?

The final measure of success is not whether Washington can impose still more pressure on Iran; it can. It is whether that power can produce an endpoint rather than another obligation to respond. If every attack requires another attack to preserve the credibility of the last one, the United States may continue winning tactically while accumulating greater costs, commitments, and constraints. In this kind of war, victory is not simply the ability to strike harder. It is the ability to use force in a way that changes the adversary’s behavior while preserving the freedom to stop using it.

The Definition of Insanity

by Ron Paul | Sep 2, 2026 | 

Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Whether he actually said it or not, the definition stands.

This definition also very well describes the Trump Administration’s war with Iran. According to media reports, President Trump was cajoled by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that this would be an “easy war,” like Venezuela. Just assassinate the Iranian leadership, he promised, and the regime change would bring in a pro-America regime in Iran.

The CIA disagreed with the assessment, but Trump went with Netanyahu and the rest is history.

The “decapitation strikes” did not change leadership in Iran. As was the case in the US after the 9/11 attacks, the people rallied around the flag. The new leadership was less interested in a compromise than their murdered predecessors.

So the bombing began. Weeks of bombing. But that didn’t work – it only depleted our already-low weapons supplies.

Then “diplomacy” was substituted for bombs and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by both sides. The US side immediately broke the agreement by attempting to open a new ship corridor by force and the bombs started flying again.

For the past month the bombs stopped only to start up last weekend, with a US strike on an Iranian island. This was followed again by multiple Iranian strikes on US bases in the region.

Bombs then diplomacy, bombs then diplomacy. President Trump has told us dozens of times that us the war is over, and we have won, but no one believes it any longer. He claims that the US completely controls the Strait of Hormuz while the shipping corridors are empty.

The US military has been stretched to the breaking point. US sailors and Marines endured a record-breaking deployment with terrible conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and other ships at sea. But this past weekend we saw the most telling sign of a military pushing back against orders that make no sense. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned his position, reportedly due to disagreements with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the toll the war is taking on military readiness. Driscoll follows several high-ranking US Army officials who have resigned. It seems clear that US Military leadership does not believe in the mission.

Maybe President Trump should listen to them instead of his “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth?

Doing the same thing and expecting different results may be the definition of insanity, but another definition might be starting a war halfway across the globe against a country that has neither attacked nor threatened you. Insanity might be starting a war based on the self-serving lies of a foreign leader who just happens to benefit from the fighting. Insanity might be further depleting the US arsenal of missiles and other weapons after years of proxy war against Russia through Ukraine. Insanity might be burdening future generations with a national debt of $40 trillion and climbing.

It is time for some very difficult decisions to be made. This war will not be won with more bombing, and the Iranians no longer trust us as negotiating partners after broken agreements and false claims. The only course of action is to pack up and come home. Let the people of the region solve their own problems.

Ron Paul is a former Republican congressman from Texas. He was the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for president.