Chicago Tribune should replace Daniel DePetris as its foreign affairs correspondent

 Chicago Tribune should replace Daniel DePetris as its foreign affairs correspondent

 

His commentary Friday, “Militarily, the Iran war is a success. But what are the US goals?” disgraces responsible, honest analysis. No reputable political scientist, military observer or historian would concur with a title that opens with Trump’s war being a military success. It is a military disaster getting worse every day for 15 days now.

 

The title ends with the misleading question, “But what are the US goals?” Like anyone studying the war, DePetris knows full well the US singular goal is to remove Iran as a hegemonic rival of Israel in the Middle East to certify US, Israeli domination over the entire region.

 

His first sentence “From a pure military-centric perspective, the ongoing U.S. and Israeli war against Iran has been a smashing success” is smashing all right, but not a success for anyone: not Iran, not Israel, not America; indeed, not the world. The cutoff of oil production and transit in the Middle East may plunge the world into global recession and chaos predictable from the instant Trump launched his senseless, murderous war two weeks ago.

 

DePetris mentions none of this murder and economic mayhem with no end in sight. He nibbles around the edges of its international criminality with this ingenuous statement. However, all the military successes in the world don’t add up to much if the campaign itself is untethered to a clear set of realistic goals. And therein lies the big problem with the Trump administration’s war of choice against Iran (minus the questionable legality of it). Saying the war is of questionable legality is akin to saying Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland was of questionable legality. Trump is tethered to removing Iran as a powerful Middle East hegemon, a goal that does not justify preemptive attack. And the thousands it murders, and billions, possibly trillions in damage it spreads across the Middle East, including US bases, Israel and Gulf States besides Iran, represent the supreme international crime…criminal war.

 

It’s not Trump who’s untethered, it’s DePetris, who is untethered from honest analysis of the unfolding catastrophe launched by the nation whose foreign policy he shamelessly supports.

 

Come on Chicago Tribune. Give Chicagoland a foreign affairs correspondent tethered to reality, common sense and truth.

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn