Those who think this is new should consult the record of the last great European war.

By the end of his life, with Europe more closely resembling a carcass than the civilization he had traded to Bolshevik butchers in exchange for the destruction of a German rival, Winston Churchill looked upon its post-war ruins. He was reported by some historians to have muttered—though the exact provenance remains disputed—perhaps the most haunting admission in modern history:

"We killed the wrong pig."

The Old Lion realized it too late. "Uncle Joe" Stalin's alliance drained the Western nations of their lifeblood. Half a continent Stalinized. The Empire Churchill once believed he saved had quietly expired.

Today, as the bombs of Operation Epic Fury fall upon the 91 million people of Iran, Washington's bipartisan board of directors that manages its nation's decline is repeating this fatal blunder with a new "Uncle" at the helm.

A Supreme Leader, by most accounts, is gone. The people who never voted on this war are the ones who will bury the dead.

By bombing Tehran on behalf of "Uncle Bibi" Netanyahu, the U.S. military is not defending American liberty. Instead, it is helping to fatten what late columnist Joe Sobran called a "deformed limb of the West," one that has demonstrated its parasitic contempt for this Republic.

Ask the Scholastics: what "proportionate cause" requires American bombs over Tehran? What "right intention" serves the Republic? Was this a "last resort"?

Ask the war caucus in both parties that cheered.

Consider. By whose reckoning did a nation still at the table in Geneva in the morning demand bombs by nightfall? This was not deterrence. This was a decision made in advance.

Diplomacy had not failed. It was abandoned.

Could turning key strongholds within the Islamic Republic into rubble merely serve the ideological caprices of zealots?

After all, these are the selfsame folks who view the State of Israel not as a sovereign nation subject to the same moral laws as any other, but as a divine mandate that justifies any and every means.

To protect their most consistent Middle Eastern ally, Washington has entangled itself in a strangling alliance that drains the American treasury and risks the lives of working-class patriots. At the same time, America's borders are left to rot amid the managed decline.

The comparison between "Uncle Joe" and "Uncle Bibi" rests on what Plato called the "Noble Lie": a myth, consciously maintained by those who govern, to keep the governed compliant.

The philosopher-kings at least had the decency to believe civilization depended on it. Their heirs in Washington find it convenient.