For most of the postwar era, the United States has gone to war with partners whose military contributions ranged from moderately helpful to mainly symbolic. Britain in Afghanistan and Iraq comes to mind in the first case. Germany in the 1999 Kosovo war comes to mind in the second.
The war against Iran is different. As of Monday, Central Command reports that the United States had struck more than 7,000 targets inside Iran. Israel, for its part, had carried out some 7,600 strikes, according to a representative of the Israeli military. This may be the first time since the Second World War that Washington has had an equal partner with which to share the burdens of war.
That’s a good starting point from which to consider the claim that the U.S. war with Iran is really a war for Israel. Past administrations have, in fact, gone to war for other countries. In the early 1990s, we went to war in the Persian Gulf for the sake of freeing Kuwait and defending Saudi Arabia — two countries that couldn’t defend themselves — from Iraq. Later that decade, we went to war in the Balkans after Europe proved shamefully unable to police its own neighborhood.
In both cases, U.S. presidents believed they were serving the national interest. But the military helplessness of our allies was a major factor in the decision to intervene.
As for Israel, the charge that the United States has gone to war for it isn’t new.