The Iran War Exposes the Farce of American "Representative Democracy"

The Orion War exposes the farce of American representative

democracy by Ryan MacMacon.

The Trump administration has unilaterally,

without any congressional debate or vote, of course,

forced Americans into yet another war.

This time, the war is a large-scale military campaign

against Iran.

Was there any groundswell of public support for this war?

Did the Congress vote to spend more American tax dollars

on another war?

Apparently not.

According to a March 1st poll from Reuters,

only 27 percent of Americans polled,

said they support the US's new war on Iran.

Needless to say, few Americans have been calling their

representatives in Congress, asking for yet another

Middle Eastern war.

So why is the US now at war with Iran?

Not even the administration appears to know for sure.

After the war had already begun,

the White House repeatedly changed its stated rationale

for opening hostilities against Iran.

At the beginning, the US regime had been claiming

it wanted regime change in Iran to liberate Iranians,

yet by Monday, when Trump listed his reasons

for starting the war, he didn't mention regime change at all.

Rather, the administration now seems to have settled

on claims that the Iran regime was creating a missile program

that somehow endangers the United States.

Yet virtually no one believes that the Iranian regime

has ever had long-range missiles capable of getting anywhere near US territory.

Rather, the only threat to the United States

is a threat to US bases, which the US government

has insisted on building 10,000 miles from US territory,

and which have nothing to do with the safety of Americans

in the United States.

On Monday, Rubio said that the United States began the war

because the state of Israel planned to attack Iran

and that this would lead to Iranian reprisals

against US bases.

Rubio was essentially stating that Tel Aviv forced the US into the war.

Trump today directly contradicted his secretary of state

as well as the GOP speaker of the House and GOP Senator Tom Cotton,

and claimed, I might have forced their hand.

Completely absent from all these confused and retroactive attempts

to justify the war, is any mention of the American people,

their tax dollars, their freedoms, or even their alleged representatives in Congress.

Nor is this surprising.

The current war is a timely reminder that the US ruling elites

regard the US taxpayers and ordinary Americans as little more

than inconvenient afterthoughts in the formation of US foreign policy.

At the same time, the US regime also claims

to have the moral high ground precisely because the American regime is supposedly

democratic with the support of the people.

Indeed, the Trump administration overall has helped make it abundantly clear

that US elections and public opinion are almost completely irrelevant to the foreign policy.

Throughout his campaigns, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed to be the peace candidate,

announcing in his speeches that he would end wars rather than start them.

In the days before the 2024 election, the GOP posted this image in social media,

clearly presenting the Trump administration as the pro-peace ticket.

Yet less than a year into his second term,

Donald Trump's foreign policy looks largely indistinguishable

from that of the foreign policy of Barack Obama or Joe Biden.

Indeed, if the current war drags on will be able to say Trump's foreign policy

is reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration.

It was clear during the campaign that the Trump ticket was trying to take advantage

of public sentiment, which favored less US involvement in foreign wars.

With American foreign policy, however, elections don't matter.

This was recently emphasized by the bumbling US ambassador

to Israel, Mike Huckabee, in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson.

Carlson began with a simple question for Huckabee, Carlson.

How much does it matter what Americans think Huckabee?

Well, it matters every bit what Americans think.

Carlson then points out that about 21% of Americans support war with Iran.

He asked Huckabee if that's enough for the US regime

to start a war with Iran. Huckabee states,

we don't live in a world where you have a poll taken to find out

whether our policy should be in a particular direction.

Carlson then points out that Huckabee had just said public opinion matters a lot,

and Huckabee says we care deeply about it. Carlson,

if we're ignoring it, in what sense do we care deeply about it?

Huckabee then offers a non-sequitor.

I think we care deeply when we see there's a threat.

Huckabee then continued with more word salad in a desperate attempt

to make a connection between public opinion

and his preferred policy of repeatedly starting elective wars

with Middle Eastern regimes that are no threat to the US population.

The reality, of course, is closer to Rubio's explanation

for the US's involvement in the war,

following the lead of the state of Israel.

This is apparently fine with Ambassador Huckabee, of course,

who in his Carlson interview was asked if Huckabee thinks the state of Israel

has a right to take over most of the Middle East.

Carson stated, does Israel have the right to that land?

Huckabee responded, it would be fine if they took it all.

And what if most Americans don't share this opinion?

Clearly, the US regime doesn't care,

and neither does Huckabee or Donald Trump.

In spite of all the US regimes posturing about the will of the people

and representation in Congress, what really matters in Washington

is serving powerful interest groups.

The tax paying public simply exists as a resource

to be bled dry in favor of wars, protectionism,

and federal spending which serves the ruling elites

complex system of patrons and clients

that keeps the elite in power.

When it comes to US foreign policy in the Middle East,

the dominant interest group is the state of Israel.

This is executed through the American Israeli political action committee,

AIPAC, and other elements of what foreign policy scholars

John Mirzheimer and Stephen Wald call the Israel Lobby.

When Mirzheimer and Wald released their book The Israel Lobby in 2007,

they were predictably accused of anti-semitism.

Yet the book was ahead of its time in describing how pro-Israel interest groups

have been extremely successful in gaining financial,

military, and strategic favors for Israel

from US policy makers.

It has all been done at the expense of American taxpayers.

The result has been an American foreign policy elite

that overwhelmingly favors incessant foreign intervention

to favor a foreign state.

The state of Israel, regardless of any concern for the cost born by Americans

or the potential for drawing the US into broader conflicts

that do not in any way increase the security of the United States.

In 2007, the Israel Lobby seemed controversial to many.

In 2026, it is merely a statement of the obvious

that US foreign policy is tailored to favor certain interest group

rather than the interests of ordinary voters.

This, however, is how all interest group politics works.

The voting public doesn't matter, and it hasn't mattered for a long time.

This has shown an empirical studies that have tried to find a connection

between public opinion and actual policies

favored in Washington.

The connection is tenuous at best.

For example, in a 2014 study by Martin Gillens and Benachman Page,

the author's note that when it comes to impacts on US government policy,

average citizens and mass-based interest groups

have little or no independent influence.

Gillens and Page Note that the preferences

of economic elites have far more independent impact upon policy change

than the preferences of average citizens do.

This can be seen in Trump's own fundraising, given how

one of his biggest donors, billionaire Miriam Adelson,

is notable for an extreme pro-Israel position.

This is not surprisingly reflected in Trump's foreign policy.

The final conclusions of Gillens and Page are clear.

In the United States, our findings indicate

the majority does not rule, at least not in the causal sense

of actually determining policy outcomes.

When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites

or with organized interests, they generally lose.

Moreover, because of the strong status quo

by us built into the US political system,

even when fairly large majorities of Americans

favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

Perhaps no group of economic elites

is more influential in foreign policy

than those who control campaign funds distributed

through pro-Israel interest groups like AIPAC

or through the spending of wealthy individuals like Adelson.

Other studies have come to similar conclusions.

For example, in a 2017 paper on voter preferences,

John Matsusaki concluded that legislator preferences

don't correlate with voter preferences.

When legislator preferences differed from district opinion

on an issue, legislators voted congruent

with district opinion only 29% of the time.

The data do not show a reliable connection

between congruence and competitive election,

term limits, campaign contributions, or media attention.

The evidence is most consistent with the assumption

of a citizen candidate model that legislators vote

their own preferences.

There is of course no such thing as a district opinion,

but the general idea is clear enough

if a legislator's campaign war chest depends on pleasing

a specific interest group,

then the preferences of the voters don't really matter.

Similarly, in a 2016 study from Michael Barber,

he writes on how votes in the U.S. Senate

bear little relation to public opinion.

Senators preferences diverge dramatically

from the preference of the average voter

in their state.

The degree of divergence is nearly as large

as if voters were randomly assigned to a senator.

So if policy makers are largely independent

of the voters who the policy makers ostensibly represent,

then what determines federal policy comes

to the big stuff like war?

Federal comes to the big stuff like war.

Federal spending and the central bank,

elections don't matter.

It's why no matter who gets elected,

U.S. foreign policy precedes more or less as usual,

year after year after year.

This is why it doesn't matter that only about one

in four Americans is interested in being on the hook

for yet another Middle Eastern war with no apparent benefits

for any average American.

This is why the administration continues to engage

in shifting claims about the origins of this conflict.

The administration knows that claims about Iran being a threat

to the American people are not tenable

and are on the same level as claims about Iraqi WMDs.

Nor can the regime just come right out at say

our pro-Israel funders told us to fight Iran.

So we have Rubio telling us the war was a pre-emptive strike

against the potential blowback from U.S.

funded Israeli strikes on Iran.

This explanation is already falling apart,

which is why Trump now denies it.

In the end, the regime doesn't even really need to come up

with a plausible explanation.

The political fallout will settle largely

on the current administration,

and this will have little effect on the real governing elite

which remains in control regardless which party

is ostensibly in power.

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