A quick Internet search shows 45 US bases surrounding Iran. Additionally, there is the US Navy with the aircraft carrier Lincoln visible in the Persian Gulf.  John Bolton and CIA leader/USA Secretary of State Pompeo insist Iran is a threat to our security.

A democratically elected government of Iran was overthrown by the USA in the 1950’s. The despotic Shah was put in place but eventually removed. Continual interference by the CIA and military outposts ferment anti-US sentiments to the present day.

Now Iran is charged with aggression.

How soon we forget that lies about charges of Vietnam’s gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin, which brought the USA into a disastrous war.  There were two million Vietnamese casualties and 50,000 US deaths.

Generations later, birth defects are visible among Vietnamese children because of Agent Orange dropped on the nation.  Since the humbling US withdrawal from Saigon in 1975, Washington has intervened (without Congressional approval) in fifteen nations. The War Powers Act designed to harness   Richard Nixon has not been used to curtail Commanders-In-Chief.  Afghanistan and Iraq are two of our most costly foreign policy errors. The agony of these nations drags on with presidential adviser John Bolton pressing for more global imperialism.  Bolton is not a democratic choice in Washington.  He is personally leading Washington into more bloodshed in Latin America, possibly in the Persian Gulf.

Those who speak against our foreign military ventures are risking their own lives.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was the foremost prophet/martyr during Vietnam years. He said without fear, “The USA is one of the greatest purveyors of violence in the world.” Historian James Douglas believes the CIA killed King, John Kennedy (who wished to scale back the nuclear arms race and “smash the CIA into a thousand pieces”) plus Malcolm X who was a frequent critic of our belligerent foreign policies.

Iran will not be moving national boundaries. It can quickly decide to close the Persian Gulf shipping if attacked by US forces surrounding the nation. When oil stops flowing through this area and the price of gasoline affects 300 million car owners in the USA it will be too late for changing imperialistic foreign policy mistakes made by the Bolton/Pompeo/Trump axis.

A bellicose voice was heard in Washington recently: “Boys go to Baghdad (Iraq) while real men go to Tehran.” The aircraft carrier Lincoln off the coast of Iran brings to mind a President who said in his final hours: “How hard it is to die knowing you are leaving the world no better than if you never lived at all.”

Do Commanders-In-Chief have a conscience similar to Lincoln, a President who had more honorable books written about him than any other?