The Trillion-Dollar Illusion

We spend all that money and are still unable to defend our Persian Gulf bases.

By George D. O’Neill Jr.
The American Conservative

April 8, 2026

The latest American-Israeli aggression against Iran has exposed the United States’ inability to defend our big bases in the Gulf Countries and smaller bases in Iraq. For decades, these countries have had to endure the ire of their populations who are unhappy with the presence of U.S. forces in their lands. Their citizens are painfully aware of the U.S. and Israeli mass destruction and murder of their Muslim brothers. This may become a source of instability as war escalates.

Our leaders bribed and coerced the Persian Gulf family monarchies into accepting U.S. military bases in their countries. The regimes justified the American presence because the “most powerful military in history” would protect them. How has that worked out? The Persian Gulf states are now experiencing devastating daily missile attacks from Iran because the Iranians are blaming them for supporting and participating in the Israel/U.S. aggression. How did they not consider that possibility when they encouraged this U.S. aggression? Iran warned them. 55 Fun & Effective Cha... Tillery, Reese Check Amazon for Pricing.

One of Osama Bin Laden’s chief complaints was the sacrilege of U.S. military bases in the Muslim Holy Land. The Gulf state leaders must have been watching too much Fox News or the other news outlets controlled by friends of Benjamin Netanyahu. Their foolish decisions now threaten the stability of their regimes. Also, if Iran is turned into a non-functioning country, there will be nothing to protect the Gulf states from predation by Israel.

As the war against Iran grinds on, the Gulf state leaders are becoming acutely aware of just how much the U.S. regime prioritizes Israel over them. It also galls other “allies” of the U.S. regime that Israel, the root cause of the war, is receiving resupply of Patriot missile interceptors at their expense.

In addition, we are now witnessing as they increasingly realize that the various U.S. and Israeli missile defense systems provide no serious defense against hyper-sonic missiles. This was a long-suppressed fact exposed during the Ukrainian War. The U.S. elite don’t want Americans to know, but Iran, Russia, China, Hezbollah, and even Ansar Allah (the Houthis) know full well how to successfully overwhelm and defeat U.S. missile defense systems. The Iranians are demonstrating this daily. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is too busy cheerleading to notice. President Donald Trump is clueless. Our mocking bird press maintains the pro-war narrative of phony U.S. successes.

Our military is still extremely powerful and able to cause wreckage all over the world. It is our leaders’ competence and judgment that is in serious question. Look what chaos they are wreaking on Iran and what Israel is doing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria with the arms and money we have given them. Large Print Memory Puz... Parragon Books Check Amazon for Pricing.

The whole country of Iran has a GDP of less than 500 billion dollars. That is less than one half of what the U.S. regime spends on military alone in a year, yet Iran has destroyed most of the U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf and is wreaking havoc on Israel. The U.S. carrier groups are positioned more than 700 miles away from Iran because they are wary of the Iranian missile capability and the inadequate U.S. defense capabilities. And, as they had warned, the Iranians have gained control of the Strait of Hormuz. Israeli/U.S. leaders appear to be surprised. Their plan appears to have been: Pretend to negotiate, get the Iranians to gather their leaders to consider the offers, then kill them all and hope the country would collapse. Quick and easy and over in a few days. Another cake walk. It appears that the intelligence and planning was happily provided by Netanyahu and his vaunted Israeli intelligence, who had people assigned to the White House. They desire the destruction of Iran in spite of the price. The rest didn’t matter to them, so U.S. leaders were not encouraged to consider planning for other contingencies.

For example, the Trump administration spent a couple of months and billions of dollars last year vainly attempting to crush the Yemeni Ansar Allah who have been threatening ships transiting through the Red Sea. The U.S. carrier group had to retreat from the Yemeni missiles. The Trump administration made a deal to leave them alone.

The long list of countries wrecked by the U.S. since the Second World War, but not conquered, is shocking. We spent many trillions of dollars and spread only death and destruction. None of the wars for democracy ended up with democracy. Their promise to protect civilians from cruel dictators in fact killed and wounded more civilians than the cruel dictator would have done. The rhetoric was created to bamboozle the hapless American people into supporting these cruel fiascoes.

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