By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack
The United States is the most war‑embracing and dangerous nation in the world. Its record over the last 35 years—and many decades before that—makes this impossible to deny. No other country has launched more wars, bombed more nations, imposed more devastating sanctions, or destabilized more societies. Western politicians insist that China, Russia, or Iran threaten global peace. But the historical evidence points in only one direction—the greatest threat to world peace is the United States itself.
And other than the nations the US attacks, the country that stands to lose the most if the US goes rogue is Canada—America’s closest neighbour, largest trading partner, and most economically dependent ally. Canada’s prosperity, sovereignty, and security are tied to a declining superpower whose foreign policy has become increasingly reckless, militarized, and unpredictable.
This is not hyperbole, its reality.
Bill Clinton: The quiet architect of catastrophe
The calamity that the world faces today began in 1990s following the Persian Gulf War and the end of the Cold War, a time when the US was the only global superpower, a time often remembered as a peaceful decade. In reality, the 90s were the prelude to the global violence that took place in subsequent decades. Under President Bill Clinton, the United States imposed one of the most devastating sanctions regimes in modern history on Iraq. These sanctions crippled Iraq’s economy, destroyed its infrastructure, and led to widespread malnutrition and disease. UNICEF estimated that approximately 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result.
When asked in a 1996 60 Minutes interview whether the deaths of half a million children were “worth it,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied, “We think the price is worth it.” It was a moment of moral clarity where the vile mindset of senior American officials was revealed for what it was—one where: Washington openly admitted that mass civilian death, and those of children no less, was an acceptable cost of American power.
In 1998, Clinton also ordered the bombing of Sudan’s Al‑Shifa pharmaceutical plant, claiming—without evidence—that it was producing chemical weapons. In reality, the plant produced 50–60% of Sudan’s medicines, including treatments for malaria and tuberculosis, and its destruction plunged Sudan into a public health crisis that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in subsequent years.
These were not isolated mistakes. They were early signals of a country that had embraced militarism as a permanent operating principle.
George W. Bush is a war criminal shielded by power
George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan which led to a 20 year war and occupation, and its war o Iraq reshaped the Middle East and South Asia. The Iraq War—launched based on lies about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)—was illegal under international law and lacked United Nations authorization. By the international legal standards applied to other leaders, Bush should have been tried and convicted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for launching a war of aggression, and as the leader of a nation that committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The consequences of the war were catastrophic. It is estimated that up to a million Iraqis were killed or died from the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Iraqi society. Millions more were displaced, and a region was destabilized for generations. Iraq had long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, and its destruction removed a major political counterweight to Israeli regional ambitions. Israel had openly identified Iraq as a strategic threat and quietly encouraged US confrontation with Saddam Hussein.
Yet Bush has never faced accountability for the destruction caused by his policies. His war crimes have been sanitized through political power, media complicity, the passage of time, and the myth of American exceptionalism.
Barrack Obama: The drone executioner
Under Barack Obama, US warfare expanded dramatically. Obama did not merely inherit Bush’s war machine and continue operating it, he refined it, technologized it, and made it more lethal. Central to this transformation was the massive enlargement of the CIA’s drone assassination program.
Military drone warfare intensified in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, turning these countries into unacknowledged killing fields. American missiles struck homes, weddings, funerals, marketplaces, and entire villages. Independent investigations repeatedly found that the vast majority of those killed were civilians, including children. The Obama administration even adopted a policy that counted any “military‑aged male” in a strike zone as a “combatant” unless proven otherwise—a bureaucratic trick that erased civilian casualties from official records.
These were extrajudicial executions carried out across sovereign nations with which the United States was not formally at war. By any reasonable standard, Barack Obama is a war criminal, as is Hillary Clinton, who championed and defended these operations. Senior US officials who designed and expanded the drone program belong in international tribunals, not lecture halls or corporate boards.
The fact that Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 is one of the most grotesque ironies of the century. Based on his record in office his prize should have been rescinded long ago.
The destruction of Libya
Libya stands out as one of the most consequential and destructive interventions of the 21st century. Obama and Clinton sold the NATO bombing campaign to the UN Security Council as a humanitarian mission in support of Arab Spring protestors. In reality, it was a plan to destroy a functioning state, one which plunged Libya into civil war, and opened the door to slave markets, and effectively made it into a failed state.
Libya was not bombed simply because of the Arab Spring. It was bombed because Muammar Gaddafi threatened Western financial dominance. Gaddafi had proposed a Pan‑African Gold Dinar, a currency backed by gold rather than the US dollar. His plan included: an African central bank; an African investment bank; an African monetary fund, a unified African military, and a common African passport.
These institutions would have reduced Western financial and political control and allowed African nations to trade oil and other natural resources based on the intrinsic value of gold. Crucially, Gaddafi’s plan threatened the petrodollar system, which underpins American financial hegemony.
Libya was also a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, and Israel had long viewed Libya as a regional adversary and quietly supported Western pressure against Gaddafi.
By any reasonable standard, Obama, Clinton, and the leaders of NATO nations that participated in the bombing are unindicted war criminals.
Syria and Iran were targeted for supporting Palestinians
Syria and Iran have long stood outside the orbit of American and Israeli geopolitical control. Both nations have been consistent, vocal, and material supporters of the Palestinian cause for decades. And in Washington’s worldview—shaped heavily by Israeli lobbying—this alone has been enough to mark them for punishment.
Syria became a battlefield for US airstrikes under Barack Obama, with bombings justified under the banner of fighting ISIS and supporting Arab Spring protesters in that country. But the reality was far more complex. The United States armed and supported militant groups, imposed sweeping sanctions, and carried out airstrikes that devastated civilian infrastructure. The Costs of War Project at Brown University documents tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Syria attributable to US military operations, sanctions‑driven deprivation, and the cascading effects of regional destabilization.
Syria’s long‑standing support for Palestinian resistance movements made it a target for Israeli pressure, with Israel openly advocating for US confrontation with Damascus, viewing Syria’s alliance with Hezbollah and Iran as a strategic threat. Washington obliged, turning Syria into another front in its endless war doctrine.
Iran is the ultimate target of US–Israeli aggression
Iran has been under US sanctions for more than four decades—sanctions that have crippled its economy, restricted access to medicine, and harmed millions of civilians. These sanctions are not defensive measures but instruments of economic warfare. They are designed to break Iran’s political will by destabilize its society and forcing regime change.
- In recent years, the US–Israeli campaign against Iran has escalated dramatically. The pattern is unmistakable:
- On June 2025 Israel launched strikes deep inside Iran, targeting infrastructure and military sites;
- From February 2026 onward the United States joined Israel in coordinated attacks, striking Iranian facilities, air defenses, and civilian areas;
- These attacks were carried out without UN authorization, making them illegal under international law;
- Western governments refused to condemn the strikes, revealing a profound moral bankruptcy at the heart of the so‑called “rules‑based international order.”
Iran’s crime, in the eyes of Washington and Tel Aviv, is not terrorism, nuclear ambition, or regional aggression. Iran’s crime is supporting Palestine, resisting Israeli expansionism, and refusing to submit to US geopolitical control.
The Human Toll: A Region Bleeding from US Wars
The Costs of War Project provides the most authoritative accounting of the devastation:
- Iraq: Over 300,000 direct deaths, and more than 1 million indirect deaths.
- Afghanistan: Over 176,000 direct deaths, and more than 1 million indirect deaths.
- Pakistan: Tens of thousands killed by US drone strikes and counterterror operations.
- Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria: Hundreds of thousands more killed through US airstrikes, proxy wars, sanctions, and destabilization.
Across the region, the total death toll attributable to US wars since 9/11 exceeds 4.6 million people—a figure Brown University describes as “conservative.”
Iran now stands on the brink of becoming the next Iraq, the next Libya, the next Syria—another nation shattered because it refused to bow to American and Israeli power.
The US–Israeli attack on Iran—both in 2025 and since February 2026— is illegal, unprovoked, and geopolitically reckless. It exposes the West’s hypocrisy: preaching human rights while committing war crimes. It reveals that the “rules‑based order” is a myth—an ideological shield for Western militarism. And it shows that the US is willing to ignite a regional war that could kill millions, destabilize global markets, and plunge the world into crisis.
Canada: The Neighbour Living Beside a Volcano
Canada is the country most economically intertwined with the United Staten, with Canada’s manufacturing sector exporting nearly 75% of Canadian exports go to the US—energy, agricultural produce, steel, aluminum, manufactured goods, and supply chains are deeply dependent on the American market. If the United States ever turned its economic or military power against Canada, the consequences would be catastrophic. Canada has received only a taste of that aggression with Donald Trump’s tariff war.
However, if the US launched a full‑scale economic assault—tariffs, sanctions, border closures, or financial pressure—would devastate Canada’s economy within months. If such an assault were combined with military action, Canada would be unable to resist. The Canadian Armed Forces, professional and dedicated though they are, are simply not built to withstand the overwhelming force of the US military. Canada would be routed in weeks, if not days, if Washington ever chose to attack.
This is not speculation. It is history.
The last time Canada had a formal defence plan for responding to a US invasion was in the 1920s and 1930s: Defence Scheme No. 1, a strategy that involved pre‑emptively invading parts of the United States to slow an American advance. The plan was eventually abandoned because it was suicidal.
More recently, Canadian military planners quietly modelled a Taliban‑style insurgency as the only viable response to a hypothetical US invasion. The Canadian government even acknowledged this modelling publicly. Analysts have noted that both countries historically planned for conflict scenarios, though Canada’s options have always been limited.
If the United States continues down a path of militarism, economic coercion, and geopolitical recklessness, Canada will be the first nation to feel the shockwaves.
Canada
must recognize that the greatest threat to its future is not a distant
authoritarian power—it is the increasingly unstable superpower next door.
© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
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