To the Editor:
We have now reached a breakpoint in both the Iran and Ukraine conflicts. Even if, by fortuitous happenstance, neither war results in nuclear catastrophe, the economic effects of the fighting threaten to burst an already-overstretched global financial bubble, spelling death and misery for untold numbers worldwide.
In signing the ceasefire agreement last month, President Trump candidly acknowledged that continuing the Iran war would have caused the strategic petroleum reserve to evaporate, the markets to tumble to 1929 levels, and he himself to be Herbert Hooverized. Now that hostilities have resumed, how does that warning not apply with redoubled force?!
It isn’t simply the price of oil, crucial as that might be. Here’s a small snapshot of some damage: 45% of the global supply of sulfuric acid transits through the Persian Gulf. (Sulfur is a residue when crude oil is refined.) It’s the most widely used chemical worldwide, with scores of critical applications in industry and agriculture. The effects of disrupting its availability, as with fertilizer, may be delayed, but are nonetheless devastating. There are innumerable other such examples.
Combined, Russia and Ukraine account for more than one-third of grain exports globally. The conflict has now rendered both the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea totally unnavigable. Shortly ahead, this will translate into mass starvation for the Asian and African populations whose sustenance largely depends on those shipments.
It’s way overdue for Americans to ask: Just what high ideal justifies continuing wars that generate such widespread human suffering? Our “ally” Ukraine just took the extraordinary step of disinterring the corpse of one Andrij Melnyk from Luxembourg and then transporting it to Kyiv for a national hero’s reburial. Melnyk became a German spy three years before Hitler’s invasion of the USSR, functioned as a top Nazi propagandist during the war, and helped round up Jews for the Final Solution in his locale.
Meanwhile, Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir posted recently that “All Lebanon must burn,” demanding 1000-to-1 retaliation for Israeli fatalities, and exhorting the IDF to “go berserk”!
We’re risking millions of lives and trillions in treasure to defend this?!
Sincerely, Doug Mallouk
