Israel, Iran, Ukraine, Gaza – Show Me the Money!

Are there enough wars going on in the world right now? We have the two-year-old War in Ukraine in which Russia is trying to liberate Russian-speaking provinces from Ukrainian neo-Nazis. We have the War in Gaza, where Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas terrorists who carried out the largest one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces are firing missiles at Israel across its northern border in Lebanon. Now, Iran and Israel are trading missile attacks as well.

Then there’s the Houthi assault on Red Sea shipping conducted from Yemen that has effectively closed both the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to oil shipments and large container cargo vessels. Iran has seized an Israeli-owned cargo vessel in the Straits of Hormuz. Sudan is involved in a Civil War, pitting the Sudanese Armed Forces against the rebel Rapid Support Forces. The Chinese Coast Guard is using water cannons on Philippine construction vessels. North Korea has increased its testing of ballistic missiles.

You get the picture. All of these wars and confrontations have different participants and uncertain outcomes, but they all have one thread in common – money.

These wars take money to buy weapons and support government functions. And the U.S. and its NATO allies are the biggest sources of money in most of them.

It’s fascinating to see the U.S. finance both sides in some of these wars. The U.S. supports Israel with weapons sales and direct grants and also supports Iran by releasing frozen assets and relaxing sanctions so Iran can make billions of dollars in oil sales. The U.S. and NATO support Ukraine with hundreds of billions of dollars of cash and weapons, even as NATO supports Russia by continued purchases of oil and natural gas.

The U.S. has even helped Russia by threatening to steal $300 billion in Russian-owned U.S. Treasury securities. The U.S. hasn’t done that yet, but the talk alone has driven up the price of gold by $600 per ounce in the past few months, which added $50 billion to the value of Russia’s 3,000 metric tonnes of gold.

Now, as described here, the financial chickens are coming home to roost. House Speaker Mike Johnson has introduced separate bills to fund Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

The Senate has already passed a single bill that funds all three. The Johnson approach allows members to vote different ways on separate bills instead of forcing an all-or-none approach. The vote in favor of aid to Israel is likely to be overwhelming (although antisemitic members of The Squad and other Democrats may oppose). Overwhelming support is also likely on the Taiwan bill.

The Ukraine bill is the most controversial. Democratic warmongers and RINO Republicans support it strongly. Conservative Republicans generally oppose it. Some conservatives say they will support it if it includes border protections and provisions to pay for it other than printing more money. The article also describes how conservative Republicans are warning Democrats not to use the recent Israel-Iran missile attacks as an excuse to push through a Ukraine bill on the view that the two conflicts are somehow comparable.

We’ll know soon how this all turns out. Johnson could be the biggest loser if he wins the votes with Democratic support. That makes him look more like a Democratic leader than the Republican Speaker of the House. As we wrote, these wars may be separate, but they’re all connected by the U.S. dollar.

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