Washington Must Work Toward Diplomacy

Letter: Washington must work toward diplomacy

JORDAN O’CONNELL
Oct 26, 2023
Telegraph Herald
Dubuque, Iowa

The United States today faces a test of our national resolve; will unspeakable acts of terrorism again provoke the nation into a Middle East conflict? There are powerful voices in Washington, Democrats and Republicans alike, who would leverage our economic and military strengths to tip the scales of history on an already asymmetric battlefield. Doing so would risk catalyzing a global conflagration that future historians would be tempted to call World War III.

Since World War II, we have allowed ourselves to become deeply mired in conflicts that resist military solutions, feeding cycles of violence overseas and hardening political divides on the home front. The footage we have all seen out of Israel and Gaza has been horrifying. But the question before us is not whether the United States has an obligation to stand up for its longtime ally or to defend its revolutionary ideals. The real question is whether further entrenching ourselves in the region serves the interests of our nation and its people, present and future.

This is a battle American dollars and drone strikes cannot hope to resolve. The right course of action for the United States, at this critical moment, is to leverage our unmatched strengths in the service of diplomacy. Pray for the innocents and hostages, and demand that Washington work for peace.