GT investigates: As pillars of US economic hegemony continue to loosen, how much longer can American economic dominance endure?

Out of time

By GT staff reporters

Published: Jun 28, 2026

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202606/1364613.shtml

Editor's Note: 

For the US, which is about to celebrate its 250th birthday, the atmosphere this year is far from celebratory. The smoke of the war against Iran has not only impacted the global economy and disrupted international order but has also caused the major pillars of American economic hegemony to shake simultaneously. Scholars have noted that US economic hegemony rests on five pillars: economic strength, dollar hegemony, military hegemony, political hegemony and rule hegemony. For years, the major pillars of American economic hegemony have been steadily loosening under America's domestic and foreign policies. The war against Iran has merely thrust this structural decline into the spotlight. How much longer the US can sustain its economic hegemony has become a topic of ongoing heated discussion in global public opinion.

Dollar status and military hegemony waning

"The dollar's status is gradually waning." This is how South Korea's Hankyoreh assessed the impact of the military action against Iran on the US. In the past, whenever a global crisis struck, capital would habitually flow into dollar assets for safety, a pattern that had almost become an "iron law" of the market. However, in this conflict, that rule failed for the first time. Due to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, oil exports from Middle Eastern producing countries were obstructed and revenues plummeted. Liquidity strains forced them to reduce holdings of US Treasuries. At the same time, soaring international oil prices imposed heavy fiscal burdens on oil-importing countries. To resist pressure from currency depreciation, some nations also chose to sell off US debt.

The large-scale sell-off of US Treasuries is a market reflection of the shaking of dollar hegemony, and the war against Iran has served as a catalyst for its further decline. For years, the global trend of "de-dollarization" has continued to advance. This is not due to any single unexpected event or short-term US policy misstep but the result of multiple structural factors intertwined over the long term. The US has long leveraged the dollar's status in international payments, reserves, investment and financing to exert economic pressure and impose unilateral sanctions on other countries, prompting more and more nations to actively seek to reduce their dependence on the dollar.

Meanwhile, the US government's direct interference in the Federal Reserve's decision-making independence has led the outside world to begin questioning this "anchor of dollar credibility." As doubts about the dollar's credibility spread, central banks around the world have accelerated their purchases of gold, as if quietly stockpiling for a "post-dollar era."

Dollar hegemony is only one pillar of US economic hegemony. He Weiwen, executive council member of China Association of International Trade, pointed out in an interview with the Global Times that, in addition to dollar hegemony, US economic hegemony is also built on four other pillars: economic strength, political hegemony, military hegemony and rule hegemony. Over the years, these pillars have continued to loosen.

In the dimension of economic strength, America's former advantages are steadily narrowing. The Wall Street Journal has pointed out that over the past half-century, the growth of America's economic pie has been slow. After inflation adjustment, the annual income of ordinary American households has grown by less than 1 percent per year. In 2025, the median weekly wage for full-time male workers was $1,325; after inflation adjustment, it is roughly the same as the income level in 1979.

The relative decline in economic strength is only one side of the issue. The loosening of military hegemony reveals America's difficulties from another dimension. Although the US still maintains its position as the world's largest military power, in this military operation against Iran, US forces consumed about one-third of its Tomahawk cruise missiles. The rapid depletion of precision-guided munitions has drawn external attention to its sustained combat capabilities. More critically, NATO, once seen as the world's strongest deterrent force, has shown clear internal fissures. European countries exhibit obvious distrust toward the US government. Now marking its 77th anniversary, NATO is deeply mired in a crisis of division, and the foundations of its continued existence are widely questioned.

Political prestige slumped; technological strength weakened

At the level of political influence, America's decline is even more evident. He Weiwen noted that strong comprehensive national power has given the US enormous dominance in world affairs, compelling many small and medium-sized countries to submit to its will. British scholar Susan Strange once argued in the 1980s that America's real power stems from its central role in major international institutions and strategic alliances. This institutional hegemony once made Washington's dominant position far exceed mere material advantages. After the end of the Cold War, the US relied on multilateral institutions such as NATO, the Group of Seven and the International Monetary Fund to extend its influence globally.

However, in recent years, the US has pursued unilateralism and the "law of the jungle," making enemies everywhere and constantly clashing with its allies, resulting in a sharp decline in its political prestige. This shift toward coercive hegemony is rooted in a short-sighted international outlook. America's opportunistic and unstable image has eroded the trust of its allies.

Within the framework of international rules, following World War II, the US took the lead in establishing a host of international institutions including the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These bodies were tasked with overseeing international security and the global monetary system respectively, enabling Washington to shape the world order while maximizing its own national interests. Today, however, the US has repeatedly violated the principles of sovereign equality and the prohibition on the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state enshrined in the United Nations Charter on the political front, often bullying smaller nations and meddling in other countries' internal affairs.

The technological prowess and free trade policies that have underpinned US economic dominance are also being eroded. Eighty-one years ago, Vannevar Bush, science advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt during the WWII, issued a landmark report that established the strategic direction for US scientific research. The model of government-funded, academic-led research propelled the US to leadership in numerous fields. However, today, according to the US National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, federal R&D spending as a share of GDP has fallen from 1.86 percent in 1964 to roughly 0.66 percent in 2021. At the same time, the US has tightened international scientific exchanges and stepped up screening of foreign researchers, citing so-called "national security concerns" - thereby undercutting the openness and appeal that have long sustained its research ecosystem.

Is the gradual decline irreversible?

The US declared independence in 1776, but until the late 19th century, it remained a relatively marginal player on the world stage. World War I offered the first historic opportunity for the US to emerge as a major global economic power. For American corporations and the wealthy elite, the four-year catastrophe was a moment of immense financial opportunity. During the war, the US government suspended antitrust enforcement, ramped up support for scientific research and eased arms-sale restrictions - measures that, in retrospect, created institutional space for the rise of new technology industries after the war. By the war's end, the US had transformed from a debtor nation into a primary creditor to other countries, completing a dual reversal - from capital importer to exporter, and from debtor to creditor.

It was WWII that firmly entrenched America's economic supremacy. No previous event had driven wealth accumulation in the US on such an unprecedented scale and scope. According to the Securities Times, by the end of WWII, US GDP was several times greater than that of Britain, with its gold reserves hitting $20 billion, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the world's total global reserves of $33 billion. This overwhelming economic advantage laid the groundwork for the US dollar to emerge as the world's primary reserve currency. 

Between 1939 and 1945, America's economic output nearly doubled, while Western Europe's economy contracted by 18 percent. This shift in relative economic strength cemented the US' dominant position in the global economy, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

"From my perspective, the US is still one of the most powerful economies in the world, but it no longer enjoys the overwhelming advantages it once did," Gavin Cooley, a 24-year-old American influencer, told the Global Times. Cooley believes that the greatest risk for the US is not competition itself, but failing to recognize how quickly the global balance is changing. "For decades, American economic leadership was treated as a permanent reality. Today, that assumption is being challenged," he said.

The US still holds a prominent leading position in the global economic landscape. In a commentator's article published by Egypt's Ahram Online in March, it was pointed out that the US accounts for roughly one-quarter of global GDP, with its economic volume exceeding $26 trillion. In the technology sector, US enterprises make up more than 70 percent of the total market value of the world's leading tech firms. Companies including Apple, Microsoft, Google and NVIDIA are not merely participants in innovation, but are shaping the technological evolution of artificial intelligence and advanced computing.

In terms of scientific research, US institutions consistently deliver a large number of globally influential research outcomes, firmly backed by an annual funding ecosystem worth hundreds of billions of US dollars, especially in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Multiple estimates show the US leads the world in AI investment. "This is not merely a matter of scale. It is a system capable of reproducing its own dominance and shaping the architecture of the future," Ahram reported.

Yet advantage does not equal permanence. A commentary in The New York Times opens with the headline "America Is Officially an Empire in Decline." He Weiwen told the Global Times that the gradual decline of US hegemony is a certain and irreversible trend, but that this trend is a long historical process, not an abrupt change. At the same time, he noted, the decline in US political, military and rule-making influence is closely tied to its policy direction and, in particular, to who occupies the White House.

"If the US continues to rely on past advantages while other countries continue investing aggressively in the industries of the future, it risks seeing its economic influence gradually diminish over time. Whether that happens or not will depend on how successfully the country adapts to a much more competitive and multipolar world," Cooley told the Global Times.

Israeli extremists are terrorizing Palestinian Christians and their holy sites

Janan Abdu

28 June 202

With Religious Zionism dominating key institutions of the Israeli state, police and courts fail to hold its adherents accountable for attacks on Christian communities.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israeli-extremists-are-terrorising-palestinian-christians-and-their-holy-sites

The frequency and intensity of hate crimes and terrorist acts against Palestinian Christians - including pilgrims, worshippers, clergy, nuns, Christian property, holy sites and religious symbols - carried out by Israeli extremists are steadily increasing.

These attacks are not the isolated or spontaneous incidents that Israel portrays them as to evade responsibility as a government and a state. They are premeditated crimes, committed by individuals and groups - including members of the police and military - who draw their ideological framework from extremist Religious Zionist doctrine, particularly the Hardal (Haredi Leumi, or nationalist Haredi) movement, an ultra-Orthodox nationalist current whose leading figures form part of the current governing coalition headed by Bezalel Smotrich. This ideology also has historical and biblical roots.

These crimes include verbal abuse; spitting at worshippers, holy sites and their entrances; physical violence; storming holy places and cemeteries and vandalising or desecrating them; destroying statues, gravestones and graves; writing racist slogans; throwing stones; theft, looting and arson against property; and occupying buildings and converting them for other uses.

These attacks are carried out across all areas under Israeli control but are particularly concentrated in the Old City of Jerusalem and its quarters, especially the Via Dolorosa and the Armenian Quarter. They also affect other Christian towns in the West Bank, the Palestinian communities within Israel's 1948 borders, and Gaza.

The scale and geographical spread of these attacks have expanded, as seen recently in southern Lebanon. There, in April 2026, an Israeli soldier decapitated a statue of Christ, and another soldier desecrated a statue of Mary by placing a cigarette in its mouth.

Between these two incidents, a nun in Jerusalem was violently assaulted on 28 April 2026 by an extremist who deliberately shoved her from behind, causing her to fall face-first onto the ground. Not content with an act that nearly cost her her life, he returned while she lay wounded and repeatedly kicked her, with the clear intention of causing further harm.

Recent years have witnessed an escalation in the targeting of the Palestinian Christian presence. According to a report by the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine, 157 attacks were carried out between 2018 and 2023. In 2025 alone, more than 130 attacks took place, while 14 were documented in the first two months of 2026.

These crimes have also targeted Palestinian Christians in the 1948 areas and their holy sites. Among them were the attacks on St Elijah's church in Haifa between June and August 2023, involving several repeated assaults by followers of Religious Zionism. In August 2023, the Latin Monastery of the Archangel Gabriel in al-Mujaydil was also attacked and stoned.

In and after 1948, many Christian or mixed towns were depopulated or completely destroyed. In some cases, churches were left standing and limited permission was granted for religious services and for the burial of the dead, while this was denied in other towns.

It was only in 2026 that the people of al-Bassa succeeded in securing the right to pray in the town's two churches. In the destroyed village of Ma'lul, however, residents were denied access to the cemetery after it was enclosed within a military zone and declared closed. Only after a long legal struggle did the military authorities permit, in very rare and highly restricted cases, visits to some of the graves.

The people of Gaza have not been spared. The report of the Higher Presidential Committee documented several incidents in 2023, most notably the targeting of al-Ahli al-Arabi Baptist Hospital on 17 October 2023, which killed around 500 Palestinians. On 16 December 2023, a woman and her daughter were shot dead by snipers while inside the Holy Family Catholic Church.

An ideology of supremacy

This escalation in individual and collective Religious Zionist terrorism has been fuelled by the rise of leading figures from the movement to central positions and ministerial posts within the current Israeli government.

The Religious Zionist worldview combines historic theological hostility with modern nationalist politics, in which Christianity and its history are viewed as enemies of the Jewish people. This hostility is reflected in the ideology of the movement's leaders, foremost among them Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionist Party (formerly National Union-Tkuma party). It is regarded as the most extreme current within Religious Zionism and is ideologically rigid in both its Zionist and religious dimensions.

Smotrich serves as the finance minister and as a minister within the defence ministry responsible for the Civil Administration in the West Bank. He and his movement promote an ideology that fuses Jewish religious supremacy with an absolute rejection of any Christian influence in the so-called "Greater Land of Israel", refusing to concede any part of it. The movement seeks to transform Israel into a state governed by "Torah law" - a halachic, or theocratic, state.

Under this vision, non-Jews are not granted equal rights and are instead relegated to the status of "resident strangers", conditional upon their recognition of absolute Jewish sovereignty.

Smotrich's party also adopts a hardline stance against any Christian activity in Jerusalem and Israel, opposing what it describes as "missionary work". While it accepts financial and political support from evangelical groups, it insists this support must be treated cautiously and must not be allowed to spread evangelical beliefs.

Within this framework, hostility towards Christian symbols and the Christian presence is both highlighted and justified. By eradicating the Christian religious and ecclesiastical presence, the conflict can be reframed before the West as one solely with Islam, thereby reinforcing anti-Muslim hostility and Islamophobia.

This movement has increasingly come to dominate the security apparatus - including the police, Israel Border Police and Prison Service - all of which fall directly under the authority of Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the extremist Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party and an ally of Smotrich.

Above the law

The Zionist extremist understands that, by committing crimes against Christians and their symbols across areas under Israeli control, he is unlikely to face legal accountability.

He perceives himself as above the law, if not the law itself. Even if charges are brought, the incident is treated as an isolated case, divorced from the broader context of extremist Religious Zionist ideology. Nor is it classified as terrorism or as a hate crime.

Israeli law, if the police and prosecution were to enforce it, allows for severe penalties for religiously motivated hate crimes. The Counter-Terrorism Law of 2016 defines crimes committed on religious grounds, or against places of worship, cemeteries and holy sites, as acts of terrorism, and stipulates that offences motivated by hatred should carry double the standard penalty.

The definition of a hate crime within the Penal Code also includes assaults against a person's body, liberty or property on racist grounds, or out of hostility towards a religious group, likewise prescribing enhanced penalties.

The law further contains an entire section on offences against the religious sentiments of a community, including the desecration or destruction of a place of worship, a religious building, or a sacred statue, as well as the deliberate disruption of religious rituals or attacks on cemeteries. These offences carry prison sentences ranging from one to three years. Yet such penalties are, regrettably, not enforced in the frequent attacks against Christian holy sites.

Spitting is also classified under Israeli law as a form of assault, with penalties doubled if carried out on religious grounds. The Religious Freedom Data Centre documented 110 incidents of assault in the first half of 2025 alone, including 83 cases of spitting.

It is worth recalling that the Israeli prosecution previously used charges of hate-motivated and racially aggravated assault against Palestinians during the May 2021 uprising. Arabs accounted for 85 percent of those indicted. Terrorism charges motivated by racism were brought against 95 defendants, 87 percent of whom were Arab, while racist motives were attributed to 50 defendants, 70 percent of whom were Arab.

Yet the authorities do not bring indictments against Jewish extremists from settler groups who attack Christians and their holy sites in Jerusalem, the West Bank and elsewhere - even though surveillance cameras cover virtually every alleyway in Jerusalem, making it entirely possible to identify the perpetrators.

Nor do the police fulfil their legal obligation to open a criminal investigation once they become aware that a crime has occurred. Under the law, no formal complaint is required for the police to act. Nevertheless, they do not, and attacks against Christians and their holy sites continue to increase.

Two standards

The soldier who assaulted the statue of Christ could have been charged under military law with terrorism or hate crimes, with the corresponding penalties. He could also have been charged with "conduct unbecoming", which carries a sentence of up to one year's imprisonment.

Instead, the army dealt with the offence in an extremely lenient manner, and it is likely that no punishment would have been imposed at all were it not for the media outcry. The soldier was sentenced to 30 days of confinement in a military detention facility - a disciplinary punishment less severe than actual imprisonment. As for the six soldiers who witnessed the act, they were merely summoned for a "clarification discussion", despite the possibility of treating them as accomplices through their silence.

The state and its institutions - foremost among them the police, which report directly to Ben Gvir - apply two different standards to Israeli extremists and to Palestinians.

While the Latin patriarch was prevented from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday, and restrictions were imposed on worshippers under the pretext of a "state of emergency" - with Muslim worshippers likewise barred from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque - Ben Gvir himself was permitted during the same period in April 2026 to storm the courtyards of Al-Aqsa under heavy police protection, despite the same declared emergency.

Violations committed by the Israeli state and its institutions against Christians, their property and their holy sites, as documented in the report of the Higher Presidential Committee, also include the freezing of accounts, as was carried out against the Orthodox patriarchate in Jerusalem, and the imposition of heavy taxes on church property in August 2025.

Earlier, in February 2025, property belonging to the Armenian patriarchate in Jerusalem was seized.

Violations have also occurred through settlement expansion and encroachment on church land, as seen with the Orthodox church around the Monastery of Saint Gerasimos (Deir Hajla) near Jericho, where new outposts were established. This constitutes a direct threat to the historical and religious character of the region and to the Christian presence in the country, and forms part of a broader plan to erase the Christian and historical identity of Palestine.

Following the destruction of the statue of Christ in southern Lebanon, the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land issued a statement calling for swift and firm measures to ensure accountability. Yet instead of a severe punishment proportionate to the crime, a lenient sentence was handed down.

When Israel found itself internationally embarrassed by the spread of a video documenting the crime, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced the appointment of a "special envoy to the Christian world" in April 2026, selecting a Palestinian Christian from Jaffa for the post. The church, however, issued no statement welcoming the appointment, which effectively amounted to a policy of silence and disregard.

The government's decision appears to be a cosmetic attempt to mask policies that operate according to double standards.

Externally, Israel seeks to present itself as respectful of religions, eager to deepen relations with the Christian world and to expand Religious Zionist propaganda internationally. Internally, however, it neither punishes nor deters extremists, allowing hate crimes, attacks on holy sites and the desecration of Christian religious symbols to continue unabated.

Netanyahu ‘convinces’ Trump to back Israeli occupation of south Lebanon: Report

Despite US claims of an Israeli withdrawal, Lebanese officials report aggressive violations by the occupation

News Desk

JUN 25, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu-convinces-trump-to-back-israeli-occupation-of-south-lebanon-report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly “convinced” US President Donald Trump to support a continued Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 25 June.

This strategy ensures Israel remains entrenched in occupied Lebanese territory under a “full ceasefire” that reserves Tel Aviv's “right” to strike perceived threats at its own discretion. 

According to the Hebrew outlet, sources described the fifth round of Washington-led negotiations between Lebanon and Israel as the worst round yet, marked by a “tense and negative” atmosphere.

While the US pressures for “pilot zones” where the Lebanese army might deploy, Israeli officials admit that internal political constraints and approaching elections make any withdrawal nearly impossible. 

Both sides are reportedly frustrated by the inclusion of a Lebanon-related clause in the Iran–US memorandum of understanding (MoU), which Washington allegedly added without consulting either side, under Iranian pressure.

Hezbollah has complied with the terms of the ceasefire, even as Israeli forces continue sporadic strikes, such as one drone attack on Thursday that killed three people near Maifadoun, in southeastern Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz insists Israeli occupation forces will not withdraw from Lebanon “even if there is an American demand,” telling local officials in Tel Aviv that over 200,000 Lebanese civilians “will not return” to their homes.

The US State Department previously claimed Israel had scaled back its presence as a “good faith” gesture; however, both Lebanese and Israeli sources denied the claim, with Israeli military sources confirming no withdrawal orders have been issued. 

Lebanese military officials report the opposite of a pullback, noting that Israeli forces are aggressively enforcing buffer zones even against the Lebanese army, and reportedly reversed a previous decision to exit Wazzani and Ain Arab.

For its part, Hezbollah says it is continuing to monitor the “blatant violations” of the truce, specifically citing a drone strike in Dawhat Kfar Rumman that killed two civilians, including a municipal worker, while they inspected their homes. 

The nonstop violations have prompted Tehran to warn that its high-level talks with Washington will be “halted” should Israel refuse to end its occupation of Lebanese territory. 

Under Tehran's pressure, a cessation of hostilities was previously imposed, yet Tel Aviv continues to insist on its unilateral “freedom of action” across the border.

Earlier on Thursday, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, demanded the withdrawal of occupation forces from “all of Lebanon," stressing that if they do not withdraw, Israeli troops will be “forced to flee in humiliation and defeat."

Lebanon, the New Gaza

Israel’s northward expansion is the new test of American patience.

Harrison Berger

Jun 21, 2026

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/lebanon-the-new-gaza/

On April 17, President Donald Trump, using what Reuters termed “an unusually harsh tone,” told Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they would be prohibited from attacking Lebanon. “Enough is enough!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Within two days of Trump’s declared prohibition, the Israelis issued fresh forced displacement orders in southern Lebanon, accompanied by home demolitions and airstrikes that killed civilians.

It was not the first time the Israelis had ignored ostensible directives from Washington. Vice President J.D. Vance had said in October that the Trump administration would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Yet Israel is continuing its inroads into the West Bank anyway. 

But unlike the situation in the West Bank, which the U.S. and Arab governments have effectively ceded to Israeli settlers, Israel’s ambitions in Lebanon face a serious geopolitical obstacle. Iran has, since March, made a ceasefire in Lebanon one of its stated conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the broader war—a conflict, now in its fourth month, which has substantially depleted American munitions stockpiles and hit Americans at the gas pump. 

“For us, a ceasefire in Lebanon is just as important as a ceasefire in Iran,” Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Ghalibaf said in April. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, reports that Iranian security officials are now openly discussing a “UAE for Lebanon” strategy involving costly retaliation on Emirati territory for every Israeli strike on Lebanon.

Parsi identifies several reasons why Iran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a strict term of any deal, with “perhaps the most consequential issue” being “what Lebanon reveals about Washington itself.” For Iran, Parsi says, binding Israel to the ceasefire is “a test of America’s willingness—and ability—to restrain its closest regional ally.”

Indeed, Lebanon, more than anything else, could be a lasting obstacle to resolving the Iran War. When reports circulated in late May that the U.S. had moved closer to a deal with Iran that included a ceasefire in Lebanon as a term of the agreement, Netanyahu quickly phoned Trump to secure his personal assurances that Israel would retain “freedom of action” in Lebanon regardless of any agreement the American president signs.

But Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon is more than a spoiler for the ongoing Iran War. It is rapidly becoming a sequel to the brutality in Gaza before it, and is likewise one in which all Americans, whether they like it or not, have a stake through their tax dollars.

Courtney Bonneau, an American-Dutch journalist who has reported from southern Lebanon throughout Israel’s ongoing assault, told The American Conservative that the destruction she has documented is neither incidental nor impacted by ceasefire agreements.

“The destruction has been systematic,” she said. “They've destroyed between 37 and 40 towns and villages so far, and they started that destruction during the last ceasefire period.” 

Bonneau says she has personally documented extensive structural damage across roughly 140 towns. From where she lives near the border, she can see and hear Israeli forces carrying out demolitions across the frontier on a daily basis.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz gave orders on March 22, 2026  to “accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes” following the “model in Gaza,” and footage posted by journalists like Courtney Bonneau demonstrates that is exactly what Israeli soldiers and civilian volunteers have done.

Bonneau says the most “arduous” demolitions she has witnessed involved Israeli forces rigging Lebanese homes in the ancient town of Yaroun during the supposed ceasefire that followed the 2024 war: “We watched them for weeks rigging homes with C4, going house to house. It takes all day because they go on foot, rigging them all together with wire hooks. And at the end of the day, they would detonate them.”

Israeli officials have been explicit about how broadly they define their target in Lebanon. During his September 2024 address to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu said Hezbollah had “a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage” in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reports that Israeli attacks since March 2 have killed around 3,500 people. Journalists from Lebanon say that total does not include Hezbollah militants. The Beirut-based photojournalist Mohamad Kleit told TAC that the death toll from the Lebanese Health Ministry “excludes active Hezbollah fighters since the civil defense can’t reach the areas where clashes occur like the border towns,” so the count is composed exclusively of civilians.

The bombs killing them, in many cases, bear American markings. “A lot of the military waste that I personally photographed after the last war in 2024 said ‘made in the USA’ right on the boxes,” Bonneau told TAC.

Among the weapons Bonneau has documented Israel using against Lebanese civilians is white phosphorus, an incendiary chemical that ignites on contact with air and inflicts severe burns on humans. The deployment of white phosphorus against civilian targets has long been banned under the laws of war. “They’ve been using that at least since 2024,” Bonneau said, describing Israeli deployment of white phosphorus in the olive groves of border villages and, most recently, in Nabatieh. The Washington Post confirmed in December 2023, through analysis of munition fragments collected in southern Lebanon, that the white phosphorus Israel was firing into the country was U.S.-supplied. Lebanese media reported a further white phosphorus attack on the southeastern town of Shebaa on May 26, 2026.

The international relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that the broader Israeli project in Lebanon, which at one point may have been Jewish settlement of the land, is now the destabilization of the country itself. “Israel is number one interested in creating a Greater Israel, expanding and creating an almost purely Jewish state,” Mearsheimer told TAC.

“What I think Netanyahu wants to do is to foment civil war in Lebanon, a war with the government on one side and Hezbollah on the other, as a way of weakening them both,” Mearsheimer said. “The Israelis can’t disarm Hezbollah, so they want the Lebanese government to do it.” 

Israeli officials are openly calling for the conditions that would produce such a collapse. On April 12, Israel’s Energy and Infrastructure Minister Eli Cohen called for Israel to bomb Lebanon's civilian infrastructure. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for Israel “to cut off the electricity in Lebanon.” 

Israel has demonstrated a clear will to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon; Iran, by conditioning the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz on an end to those hostilities, is seemingly their main obstacle. What happens next depends entirely on Trump’s willingness to restrain the foreign government he sponsors.

In Historic First, Congress Passes Concurrent War Powers Resolution to End Iran War

The bill passed the Senate in a vote of 50-48 after it was advanced by the House

by Dave DeCamp | June 23, 2026 

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/06/23/in-historic-first-congress-passes-concurrent-war-powers-resolution-to-end-iran-war/

The Senate on Tuesday approved a House-passed concurrent War Powers Resolution directing President Trump to end hostilities against Iran, marking the first time Congress has approved a concurrent resolution under the 1973 War Powers Act directing the termination of an unauthorized war.

In previous years, Congress has passed joint resolutions directing the president to end wars, such as the 2019 bill to end US support for the Saudi war in Yemen, which President Trump vetoed at the time, but a concurrent resolution doesn’t require the president’s signature.

Section 5(c) of the 1973 War Powers Act states that “at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution.”

The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday by a 50-48 vote, with four Republicans — Senators Rand Paul (KY), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Susan Collins (ME), and Bill Cassidy (LA) — voting in favor. Senator Jon Fetterman (PA) was the only Democrat to oppose the effort, and Republican Senators Mitch McConnell (KY) and Dave McCormick (PA) were not present for the vote.

Trump administration officials will likely claim that the vote is meaningless since there is currently a ceasefire between the US and Iran as they negotiate a deal under the Memorandum of Understanding, but proponents of the War Powers effort say the passage of the concurrent resolution means the administration is now legally bound not to restart the war without congressional authorization.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who sponsored the legislation in the House, told The Lever earlier this month that if the resolution passed the Senate, he would work with “House counsel to urge leadership to bring a court case to enforce the Iran War Powers Resolution.”

While the US and Iran have been engaged in negotiations, President Trump has continued issuing threats against Iran and has maintained forces in the region to potentially re-impose the blockade or restart the bombing campaign.

 

Trump ended his idiotic Iran war. Good.

Was it worth it? Of course not. But comparing his Iran deal with Obama's or decrying the terms risks falling into the same traps as previous presidents

Trita Parsi

Jun 18, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-ends-war-critics/?mc_cid=6c4f189709&mc_eid=944feb3e1c

I have spent years fighting against Trump’s push toward war with Iran, and I have the scars to prove it. When Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, I warned that it would eventually bring us to this moment. Ever since, I have consistently argued against the confrontational path he set the United States on. That record speaks for itself, which is why I can say what follows without any throat-clearing.

Given the circumstances, President Trump’s decision to strike a deal with Tehran and bring this costly, unnecessary war to an end is the right one. It deserves support, not partisan second-guessing. As Rob Malley — a key member of Barack Obama’s team that negotiated the nuclear deal and later Joe Biden’s lead negotiator with Iran — noted on X, comparing Trump’s memorandum of understanding to Obama’s JCPOA misses the point. What matters is not how the agreement stacks up against past diplomatic achievements, but how it compares to the alternatives before us. And on that score, Malley argued, the MOU is “far preferable to any of the alternatives on offer. Period.”

I would go further. To examine the Memorandum of Understanding and ask, “Was the war worth it?” is nonsensical.

Of course it wasn’t. How could it have been? The premise itself is deeply flawed: that a failed war of choice would somehow strengthen Washington’s hand at the negotiating table and produce more favorable terms. History offers little support for such a proposition.

The question is also flawed in another, more consequential way. It implies that a war should not be brought to an end until it has produced better terms — even when the war itself is failing.

Taken seriously, that logic leads to a dangerous conclusion: that a failed war must continue until the battlefield fortunes somehow improve and a more favorable outcome becomes attainable. Perhaps that day will come. Perhaps it never will. In the meantime, the costs — in lives, treasure, regional stability, and strategic credibility — are treated as secondary considerations.

This is how endless wars are born.

Wars become interminable when leaders convince themselves that ending them without victory is politically more costly than continuing them without hope. Once that trap is sprung, every setback becomes an argument for one more deployment, one more escalation, one more year. The objective shifts from achieving a realistic political outcome to avoiding the admission that the original objectives were unattainable.

American history offers more than a few examples. Presidents inherit wars they did not start, recognize they cannot be won on the promised terms, yet lack the political space to end them. So they postpone the reckoning. They kick the can down the road, handing the burden to their successor, who does the same. The result is a cycle of strategic drift in which the costs accumulate while the prospects for success steadily recede.

When victory is nowhere in sight, prolonging a conflict in the hope that reality will eventually conform to political rhetoric is not resolve. It is denial.

Remember Afghanistan. For years, American officials lied to the public that victory was just around the corner — six months away, perhaps a year at most. Yet the Afghanistan Papers later revealed that these officials privately understood that victory was nowhere in sight. They knew the war was adrift, but feared the political consequences of admitting it.

So, the war continued. By the time the United States finally withdrew, nearly two decades had passed, and more than $2 trillion had been spent.

And what was the end result? After twenty years of war, thousands of American and allied lives lost, and hundreds of thousands of Afghan casualties, the United States arrived back where it had begun: it had replaced the Taliban with the Taliban.

That is the curse of endless war. The refusal to accept an unfavorable reality today merely guarantees a higher bill tomorrow.

Some credit must be given to Trump for breaking this pattern, even as he should be blamed for having started this war in the first place. Political leaders should be judged not only for the mistakes they make, but also for whether they have the courage to correct them.

Trump could have followed the well-worn path of his predecessors. He could have prolonged the conflict, spent more money, sacrificed more lives, destabilized more economies, and further depleted American power — all while insisting that victory remained just over the horizon. Recall the countless times he declared that the war had been won.

Indeed, the political costs of continuing the war would likely have been lower than the costs he is paying today for ending it. In American politics, there is often greater punishment for acknowledging failure than for perpetuating it.

That perverse incentive has trapped presidents for decades. In his testimony on the Vietnam War before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1966, George Kennan stated the following: “There is more respect to be won in the opinion of the world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound policies than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives.”

The criticism coming from some Democrats is particularly disappointing because it echoes the same bad-faith tactics Republicans deployed against the JCPOA in 2015. To be sure, Trump has invited some of this treatment. He spent years attacking Obama’s agreement with a barrage of misleading arguments and exaggerated claims.

But that does not make it wise for Democrats to return the favor.

Trump currently owns this failed war, but if the Democrats help torpedo the MOU and war resumes, then they will co-own the next war. Trump’s disaster will become theirs as well.

This isn’t rocket science. Several Democratic lawmakers have managed to criticize the war, hold Trump accountable for it, yet avoid attack lines that could sabotage the MOU. Their criticisms are primarily over Trump having started this war in the first place, rather than the terms for ending it.

Rather than attacking the terms of the MOU, Democrats should pressure the administration to protect it from those who are determined to see it fail. The main external threat is the Israeli government and Benjamin Netanyahu’s obsession with sabotaging any opportunity for Iran and the United States to bury the hatchet.

Instead of relying solely on angry phone calls and public rebukes of Netanyahu, supporters of ending the war should press Trump to act now: suspend military aid to Israel and curtail military and intelligence cooperation. Such measures would limit Israel’s ability to reignite the conflict and dispel any notion in Tel Aviv that Washington will automatically follow Israel into another war. If Israeli leaders understand that the United States will not be drawn into a future conflict on their behalf, their incentive to start one in the first place will be significantly reduced.

The task now is not to reward Trump politically, nor to excuse the recklessness that produced this war. It is to prevent the war from returning. Democrats can condemn the decision to start it without sabotaging the agreement that ends it. They can hold Trump accountable without helping Netanyahu drag the United States back into conflict. The choice before them is not between opposing Trump and supporting peace. It is between learning from America’s endless wars and repeating them.