…and then what?
The question that would have saved millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
As the American public are goaded into yet another war, with Iran this time, there’s a key question no one is asking, “And then what?” In the past, I had a longer, more verbose complaint. A good friend of mine asked this question about another subject and it made sense. Simple, “And then what?”
U.S. policy makers and the American public not only fail to ask this very basic question, but they also insist that whatever malady is “plaguing” the U.S. and its “allies,” is unique. The pitch is a general “once ______ is gone, all will be well.” It never has been true and won’t be as long as the U.S. keeps up the fuckery.
We don’t have to delve into all the failed lies for war we’ve been fed (although the lines do blur). Let’s simply delve into the lack of follow-through that both parties gorge on. Recently, Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz humiliated himself on Tucker Carlson’s show. He couldn’t name a basic fact about Iran. This is a country he wants to overthrow, without a scintilla of strategy that could be based on facts. Probably why the U.S. DNI and the Pentagon have resisted going into Iran for decades, even declaring that they do not have a nuclear weapon with high confidence. This was even back when Iran was weaker. Why?
At 92 million people and five times the land mass, they don’t have a navy to be sunk in 90 minutes (Iraq). Add to that, real missiles (see Israel’s latest embarrassment) and a two million man militia answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Pakistanis have also pledged their nukes to Iran, you know, just in case. Things Ted Cruz may want to factor in since his kids aren’t the ones dying...
In his 2000 book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, Chalmers Johnson makes a great point and that is that the CIA does one thing right. They provide intel and reports on the results of U.S. involvement anywhere. The CIA called Iran in 1979, back in 1950! This was when we were toying with the idea of overthrowing the democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh. In its over 6,000-year history, Mosaddegh won the only election ever held at the time. His platform was to nationalize Iranian oil and create a better quality of life for the country.
The CIA reported that a pursuit of overthrow could lead “extremists” to take over the government and oust the unpopular Shah, whom the U.S. re-installed in 1953. The initial report gave the Shah ten years, and he lasted 26. He ruled with an iron fist, with the CIA created SAVAK cutting off noses and the like. Fun fact: the 1979 Islamic leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was on the CIA payroll to overthrow Mosaddegh, who lived under house arrest the rest of his life. Since the Shah didn’t trust or like the future ayatollah, he was exiled. The rest is history.
Just go back the last 25 years…
Here’s a short list of massive intel failures and lies that duped the American public. Lies that have genuinely created a hatred of the U.S., its so-called allies, and a deep desire to get off of, if not destroy, the U.S dollar and its hegemony. We don’t play well with our toys or others, it seems.
Iraq: Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). In 2003, The U.S invaded Iraq on the phony pretense that it was involved with Al-Qaeda and possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Not only did that turn out to be false but Saddam Hussein fought the U.S. funded Al-Qaeda and its ancillaries, as his was a secular Ba’ath Socialist government.
We were told by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, that this would only cost $50 billion and take three months. What’s more, the democracy starved Iraqis would be throwing candy and flowers at their “liberators.” With a million dead Iraqi civilians and costs estimated between $2 and $6 trillion (who knows, since the Pentagon can’t pass an audit), the Rummy was wrong. No one asked the big question.
Libya: Libyan rape squads on Viagra. In 2011, with the phony “Arab Spring” as a pretense, the government of Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and the nation turned into a failed, slave state. In 2003, Libya gave up its nukes, working to be mainstreamed into the world economy. In 2009, after being made Chairperson of the African Union, Gaddafi proposed that the continent of Africa take all its resources and create a new dinar, or “Afro,” to counter the dollar and Euro. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, bull rushed the political coward, President Barack Obama as she wanted to “look tough” in the run up to her own failed 2016 presidential campaign. So, more people died for nothing.
Obama agreed to allow the U.S. and NATO forces to bomb Libya, destroy its government, and allow Gaddafi to be sodomized with a sword by “moderate rebels.” These would be Al-Qaeda and ISIS. No wonder North Korea is holding on to its nukes…
Gaddafi, seeing the writing on the wall, warned French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, that Libya was the stop gap to immigration into Europe. What with Yemen, Somalia and the Sudan being ritualistically bombed, escapees were coming into Libya. Gaddafi provided jobs, affordable housing and a quality of life that would provide Europe with a respite from migrants. He’s dead now and all the EU can do is bitch about all the brown people coming into its sacred “garden.” A well placed “and then what?” could have been helpful.
Syria: Assad used chemical weapons. Turns out he didn’t, according to the OPCW, but that was never the point. He refused Qatar and the Saudis access into Syria for a pipeline that would go into Turkey and thus Europe. Being a client state to Russia, Assad’s refusal got the Obama Administration to start a dirty (civil) war, funding ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra in 2011. This again was under the pretense of the “Arab Spring.” Flash forward to the overthrow of the Assad Government in December 2024 and lo, and behold! We have Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Mohammad al-Julani), the Al-Qaeda leader and head chopper doing what? Kissing massive Israeli ass and chopping the heads off nearly 6,000 Syrian Christians in the first half of 2025.
Something the so-called liberal could never answer: If we’re fighting Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Al-Nusra and Assad is fighting the very same guys, shouldn’t we be fighting them together? “But he’s a dictator!”
And what did we replace him with? A head chopper with a trimmed beard, a Prada suit and a 60 Minutes seal of approval. Oh, and a reminder, Al-Qaeda. Yeah, that Al-Qaeda, 911 Al-Qaeda. Again…and then what?
Palestine, to make a point...
Since October 7, 2023, there has been more scrutiny into what Israel really is than at any time in its 77-year history. The good news is that a majority of people in the west are waking up, leading to protests in the tens of thousands. I meet people who now know the history, who don’t ordinarily follow such details.
We won’t go into all of the malfeasance, murder and land theft here. Suffice it to say, in the 1930s and 1940s, the question was, “Is it a good idea to put white, Europeans into an Arab region by force?” President Harry Truman pointed this very thing out in front a of map of Palestine. After all, Arab and African Jews have lived in the region for centuries. They worshipped, owned land and paid taxes with very little issue.
After the 1947 U.N Partition (Res.191) was violated, 33 nations voted to make Israel a nation in 1948. Not to completely disregard the newly rehabbed International Law, U.N. Resolution 194 was passed six months later. This gave Palestinians the right of return, financial reparations for stolen property and equal rights under, wait for it… Israeli law. That last part is important. It meant that Israel wasn’t being dismantled. It meant that it was being required to make nice, including to make right the near one million Palestinians ethnically cleansed during the Nakba.
Of course, Israel didn’t like that resolution, only the one that gave them someone else’s land. U.N. Resolution 194 was never enforced. The “state” of Israel is merely a white, European, colonial construct. Joe Biden said many times, in his 50 plus year career as a banker shill, “Were there not a state of Israel, The United Sates would have to invent one.”
In its savage viciousness, bigotry, and outright thievery Israel is no different than any installation by any empire. Just like the Dutch in South Africa, the French in Algiers or the British anywhere else, it has to survive on lies, demonization and the attempt to erase the history of the indigenous people it supposedly conquered.
Let’s also factor in the fabulous disasters of Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and the whole of the Levant at this point. In addition to the actual dictators that we support, there has not been peace in the region since 1948.
No one asked, “and then what?”
Abe Abdelhadi was the host of the Bitter Truth with Abe Abdelhadi. Past episodes are still on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and any platform where people listen.
Well done, Sir!~ Well done indeed! I hereby award you with my highest commendation of Kudos & Golf Claps for your honesty and correctness in reporting the facts.
We, as a global community, are in the throes of being forced back into a Monarchy... this time a "One World" Monarchy... and in my humble opinion, with the British directing the show.
For anyone truly interested in how all of what we're living today has come about, please read 'Two World Wars and Hitler' by Jim Macgregor & John O'Dowd for a good introduction... and then 'Tragedy & Hope, A History of the World in Our Time' by Carroll Quigley for the deep dive.
You're over the target, Abe.
And not that it should matter, I'm a Jew. However, I stand by facts, history, and moral objectivity. Anyone who portrays criticism of Israel as antisemitism is nothing more than a mockingbird of political, intel, and media establishment.