Leaders Must Save Face in War
By James Quillian, Economist, Political Analyst, Natural Law
Who doubts that the U.S.–Israeli war was a bad idea. Certainly not the leaders who launched it. They know the answer as well as anyone. Under natural law, an action undertaken for immoral reasons guarantees a negative outcome. Sometimes the consequences arrive immediately. Sometimes they take decades. But they arrive. And the longer corrective action is delayed, the more severe the damage becomes.
History offers examples that are impossible to ignore. Had the United States not begun with slavery, there would have been no Civil War. When the U.S. took control of Hawaii in 1893 and annexed it in 1898, it marked the beginning of an imperial adventure. The explosion of the battleship Maine—treated as a false flag by many observers at the time—opened the door to overseas expansion. Without those choices, there would have been no Pearl Harbor and no Bataan Death March. The consequences took years to mature, and they are still echoing.
The same pattern held in World War I. The decision to enter was political, not existential. Had the U.S. stayed out, the war would have ended on European soil without American involvement. And without that intervention, the conditions that produced World War II would not have existed in the same form.
Today’s situation in the Middle East is no less serious than the earlier cases. Much damage has already been done. Far more can still be prevented. But there is no humility among world leaders. They will do anything to save face. They will demand that countless soldiers give their lives so that leaders can avoid admitting error. Even more civilians are likely to die for the same reason.
The rational outcome is simple. The United States should leave the region as soon as possible. The war was never declared. The exit does not need to be declared either.
Keywords: natural law, political incentives, unintended consequences, U.S. foreign policy, Middle East conflict, historical parallels, imperial expansion, leadership accountability, war decisions, strategic withdrawal