On: Iran war: US says ready to resume war if no deal reached

The balance sheet of American foreign policy has just been restated in bold ink - though the ink is the colour of blood, and the ledger is being written by men who seem to have forgotten that war is not a game of poker where the stakes are merely reputations. The United States, it appears, is prepared to resume hostilities with Iran not because of any material necessity, but because the President has declared his red lines and now insists they must be drawn in blood rather than diplomacy. This is not a matter of strategic inevitability; it is a political choice, dressed up in the language of necessity. The “more than capable” phrasing is a classic Keynesian paradox of thrift applied to geopolitics: the United States is hoarding its capacity for war not because it must, but because it believes others will perceive it as doing so. The beauty contest has begun, and the question is not whether Iran will comply, but whether the American public and its allies will believe the threat is credible enough to justify the cost.

The short-run suffering of Iranians is already being calculated in terms of body counts and economic disruption, while the long-run benefits - whatever they may be - are being traded in the abstract currency of “strength.” But the long run is a poor consolation when the present is being sacrificed to the altar of ego. The Treasury of war is being balanced not by the needs of the nation, but by the whims of a man who seems to mistake bluster for strategy. And the rest of us - those who must live with the consequences - are left to wonder whether the real author of this policy is not the President, but the political class that has long fed on the illusion of perpetual conflict. The animal spirits of American foreign policy are not those of prudence, but of recklessness, and the market for war is being manipulated by men who have forgotten that the economy of violence is not a self-correcting mechanism. It is a choice, and choices have authors.