American Hypocrisy: The Sacred Cow of “Responsible” Warfare

Let’s cut through the patriotic noise and diplomatic nonsense: The United States didn’t avoid targeting certain Iranian nuclear sites out of some magnanimous streak of restraint or wisdom. It’s not about preventing World War III, protecting innocent lives, or upholding international law. The real reason is as cynical—and as American—as it gets: self-preservation, profit, and the preservation of a global power order that’s stacked in its favor.

Enough with the Myth of Moral Warfare

For decades, we’ve been sold the fairy tale that the US is the “global cop”—a reluctant, principled enforcer who only unsheathes its military might to keep the world safe from villains and madmen. If you still believe that, it’s time to wake up. This selective strike isn’t about avoiding “collateral damage.” It’s about avoiding consequences—political, economic, and, most damningly, the ugly truth about the limits of America’s power.

When US warplanes “delicately” sidestep the heart of Iran’s nuclear program, what’s really happening? Washington is drawing its own invisible red lines, not out of respect for Iranian sovereignty or the nuclear taboo, but because it knows full well: crossing them would expose just how hollow America’s threats have become.

The Real Red Line: America’s Ego

Here it is—the hypocrisy at the rotten core of US foreign policy. America shouts about weapons of mass destruction and “deterrence” only when it’s convenient, only against countries too weak to shoot back in kind. When a strike could actually provoke a terrifying response—triggering regional catastrophe, tanking oil markets, or sparking world outrage—suddenly, the self-righteous fury retreats behind a lawyer’s smile and the language of “calibration.”

That isn’t honor. It’s cowardice dressed up as caution. The US doesn’t want to end Iranian nuclear ambitions; it wants to control the optics. Destroying those facilities risks a war that could make Afghanistan and Iraq look like playground scuffles. Heaven forbid Americans wake up to the fact that their trillion-dollar arsenal can’t guarantee “safety”—not from nuclear retaliation, not from cyberwarfare, not from blowback.

The Unpunished Playground Bully

We clutch our pearls about “terror regimes” and “rogue states,” but who gave the United States the authority to hand out permission slips for nuclear programs? Israel sits atop a clandestine arsenal. Pakistan, North Korea—none of them lost the privilege of negotiations, all while America secures them arms deals and aid. But Iran? Their crime is refusing to play along.

Wake up to the system’s selective amnesia. America gorges itself on regime change, sanctions, and drone warfare, preaching peace while selling bombs and propping up autocrats when it suits Wall Street. The world isn’t fooled, and neither should you be.

The Final Indignation: Your Complicity

Here’s the part that should really sting: Every time you swallow the narrative that “precision strikes” are the mark of a responsible superpower, you become a foot soldier in the long con of American exceptionalism. You cheer for restraint as if it means anything to the mother clutching her dead child in the next “surgical” strike zone. You nod at talk of “avoided escalation,” never pausing to ask why the US reserves the right to judge which nations suffer and which escape.

If moral clarity mattered, we’d demand the same standards from our own war machine as we expect from those we demonize. But it’s easier—so much easier—to believe in America’s self-authored sainthood.

Will you keep swallowing the myth, or are you finally ready to spit it out?

This article was inspired by the headline: 'Why did the US attack on Iran avoid some nuclear sites? '