to the editor: A recent letter to the editor posed the rhetorical question of what would happen if the United States said “it is not our war” at other historical moments (“Letters to the editor: Global alliances 'endure when responsibilities are shared and not avoided'” March 21)? The author of the letter also made reference to the United States' involvement in the war in Ukraine.
The answer is simple: Russia was clearly the aggressor. Ukraine did not launch an invasion of Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine, as it had similarly done with other former Soviet socialist “republics” that had gained their independence after the disintegration of the USSR.
Iran did not invade or attempt to invade either the United States or Israel. And there was a signed treaty, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which ensures that Iran does not become a nuclear weapons threat and provides for inspections of Iran's nuclear program to ensure that its enrichment only reaches the reactor fuel level, but not the weapons level, signed in 2015. President Trump withdrew the United States from that treaty in 2018, during his first term.
According to all evidence, Trump created the pretext to start this war and must be held fully responsible for the consequences.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created to deter aggression; It was not created, nor was it ever intended, to facilitate it. Our European and Canadian allies are not and should not be obliged to be our enablers.
Bill Seckler, Riverside
