In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an epidemiologist named Les Roberts hid in the back seat of a smuggler’s car and snuck across the Jordanian-Iraqi border into a war-ravaged landscape. He then worked with local colleagues to conduct a careful survey, estimating the toll the 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation had on the Iraqi population. This November will mark 20 years since their landmark findings were published in the Lancet medical journal. The study found a mortality rate almost ten times higher than had been previously reported, and noted that “violent deaths were widespread” and “mainly attributed to [U.S.-led] coalition forces.” 

The results hit the press in late October, just before the 2004 presidential election. But despite their shocking contents, the result of the race didn’t change. Despite some evidence suggesting that George W. Bush’s illegal 2003 invasion and its aftermath negatively impacted his campaign, he was ultimately reelected. The antiwar left had rallied in the streets in the hundreds of thousands, but they failed to create a political force that could truly oppose Bush. They were unable to force the Democrats to nominate someone other than a milquetoast liberal like John Kerry—who had voted for the Iraq invasion as a senator, and infamously accepted the Democratic nomination by saying he was “reporting for duty.” Bush’s wars in the Middle East stretched on for a generation, resulting in millions of deaths and wasting trillions of taxpayer dollars. 

Two decades later, we find ourselves on the cusp of another presidential election, and history seems to be repeating itself. A new Lancet article shows a similarly grim, massive death toll—this time in Gaza—and the Democratic nominee is once again proving feckless in her obedience to American imperialist dogma, promising to “ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” Even Dick Cheney has reemerged, this time on the Democratic side. And as far as the MAGA Republicans are concerned, despite the America-first rhetoric, it’s hard to take the image of Donald Trump the peacenik seriously. We cannot rely on either major party to deescalate the American imperialist project of their own accord. This time, the left should demand a pro-peace and anti-imperialist agenda, and use every lever of power available to make foreign policy the major issue of 2024.

Perhaps the most dramatic and urgent example of the paramount importance of U.S. foreign policy is the nightmare currently unfolding in Gaza. The small enclave has faced an unprecedented assault resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and one of the worst humanitarian crises of recent memory. There are many tragic stories currently unfolding on the world stage, like the civil war in Sudan or the ongoing unrest in Haiti, for which a solution remains elusive and hard to articulate. Gaza is not one of them. Since the start of the Israeli assault more than a year ago, the United States has sent more than 50,000 tons of military equipment and blocked three UN security resolutions demanding a ceasefire and an end to the carnage. When U.S. officials did finally cave to international pressure and propose their own ceasefire resolution in March, they were quick to point out that it was non-binding—making it effectively unenforceable—and called into question the proposal’s effectiveness. Indeed, several more months of relentless bombing since the U.S. “ceasefire” resolution confirms it to be nothing more than a thinly veiled publicity stunt. The U.S. could make military aid to Israel contingent upon an immediate ceasefire and end the horror inflicted on the Gazan population. In fact, doing so would be consistent with U.S. law, which stipulates that the government provide no military support to groups for which there is “credible information implicating [them] in the commission of gross violations of human rights.” By the Biden administration’s own assessment, the Israelis have done just that, making continued support for the assault on Gaza both unethical and illegal. 

In true Trump fashion, the GOP nominee has limited his mention of the assault on Gaza to a few ambiguous statements expressing a desire to see the war end, without even so much as calling for a ceasefire. Despite the Biden administration’s long overdue threat of “conditioning” military aid and Harris’s pronouncements that she will “not be silent” vis-à-vis Israeli’s continued slaughter, we should remain skeptical that the Democratic nominee will change course from the current status quo. When asked in a recent interview if she would consider withholding weapons shipments to Israel, she responded, “Let me be very clear. I’m unequivocal and—and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself. And that’s not gonna change.” 

Gaza is not the only place in the Middle East suffering under the onslaught of a made-in-America bombing campaign. Yemen, the small, economically devastated Arabian nation, has made recent headlines since Ansar Allah—commonly known as the Houthis, a rebel insurgent group that controls large swaths of the country—vowed to avenge Gaza by attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea. The U.S. has responded with dozens of air bombing raids, including a mission on October 17 that deployed B-2 stealth bombers to Yemen for the first time. Despite the ostensible justification for the strikes as “self-defense,” the truth is that Yemen has been in the crosshairs of the U.S. and its allies for decades. Even prior to the Houthi insurgency, the U.S. had made Yemen ground zero for its post-9/11 “war on terror” —a foreign policy that has maintained a throughline from all successive American presidents. The country was a favorite target of former President Barack Obama, whose administration bombed a wedding procession in 2013. Obama also greenlit the use of cluster munitions in another strike that killed 55 people, almost half of whom were children, 10 of them under 5 years old. 

Things only escalated with the rise of the Houthis in 2014, and the subsequent Saudi-led bombing campaigns that have wreaked havoc on Yemen, directly killing at least 9,000 civilians. The U.S. has been a vital partner in the Saudi government’s war, as their bombing has relied on “jets developed, sold, and maintained by US companies and flown by US-trained pilots.” The United States has continued to attack Yemen directly, too. When he took office in 2017, it took Donald Trump only a few weeks to approve his own massacre of Yemeni civilians, approving a raid by Navy SEAL attack helicopters that “bombarded the entire village [of al Ghayil], striking more than a dozen buildings, razing stone dwellings where families slept.” Altogether, U.S. policy toward Yemen has resulted in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world, with over 4 million people internally displaced and almost 10 million children in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Yemen marks a major crisis for which both major parties are responsible, and which neither Democrats or Republicans have even gestured toward a willingness to address ahead of the 2024 election.  

The war in Ukraine poses yet another foreign policy challenge for which neither candidate has articulated a serious path toward de-escalation. By now it’s well-established that the U.S. and its NATO allies have favored a prolonged conflict between Russia and Ukraine over a peace deal. U.S. officials see this as a means of weakening a geopolitical foe. It’s an easy position for them to take. Neither them nor their children are at risk of being forcibly conscripted into the army as Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are now. They won’t be included in the nearly one million now estimated to have been killed or injured in the war on both sides. What U.S. bureaucrats have done, incidentally, is help facilitate defense contracts to companies like the RTX corporation (formerly Raytheon), whose board of directors previously included the current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. There has been no indication that Harris has any intention of changing course. To be fair to Trump, of the two candidates, he has expressed more willingness to work toward a negotiated end to the violence. However, his vagueness, willingness to tell blatant lies, and tendency to change positions on a whim fail to inspire much confidence. Without pressure from the American public and an insistence on a change of course, the war in Ukraine could drag on for years to come with countless more lives destroyed.    

These conflicts, taking place in far-off countries, might seem abstract and of little practical importance to the everyday voter. But the progressive blurring of every red line imposed by the Biden administration to prevent the U.S. and its allies from getting dragged into a direct confrontation with Russia should be a wakeup call to every American voter. First, there was the reversal of Biden’s initial decision to avoid sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine, when in January of 2023 the U.S. sent 31 A-1 Abrams battle tanks. Then there were the F-16 fighter jets. Despite his initial refusal, Biden ultimately acquiesced and allowed the U.S. and its allies to send Ukraine the American-made planes. And in May of this year, the administration reversed course on another key limit when it allowed for the use of American weapons to strike just inside Russia’s borders. As Biden flirts with the idea of allowing Ukraine to use American-supplied weapons to strike even deeper inside Russia, President Putin announced that “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries—are at war with Russia.” It is not hyperbole to suggest that direct confrontation between the U.S. and Russia, two nuclear powers, could end life on earth as we know it. It’s not just the tens of millions who would die in the initial strikes on major cities, but studies estimate that the fallout and nuclear winter produced by war between the two superpowers would likely result in 5 billion deaths—more than half of the Earth’s total population. What could be more important than preventing that?

This is not to say that domestic policy is unimportant. Universal healthcare, quality education, affordable housing—these are all important issues that are worth fighting for. But substantial domestic policy initiatives are difficult to achieve without significant buy-in from Congress. On the other hand, when it comes to the use of military force, history has shown that presidents have practically been given carte blanche. Despite the U.S. Constitution’s stipulation that only Congress can declare war, all presidents since World War II have gotten around this by simply using military force without actually declaring war, calling their attacks a “police action” or “special operation” instead. In 1973, Congress attempted to curtail this loophole by passing the War Powers Resolution which made explicit the requirement that the president consult Congress before using military force. However, after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), a piece of legislation that ostensibly gave the president the authority to use military force in order to bring those responsible for September 11 attacks to justice. In reality, however, the AUMF has been used by every successive president to justify their military misadventures around the world. The reality is that presidents have an incredible amount of independence in matters of war and peace, making foreign policy of the utmost importance when it comes time to elect one. 

There is another reason why those who would otherwise prefer to focus on a progressive domestic agenda should still insist on making an anti-imperialist foreign policy the major issue of 2024. It is estimated that between the years 2001-2022, the U.S. has spent $8 trillion on the post-9/11 wars. That amount could instead have covered universal pre-K and free college tuition over the same period, with enough left over to cancel all student loan debt. It could cover almost 3 years of universal basic income for all American adults, ending U.S. poverty as we know it. It is enough to end world hunger in 10 years… 20 times over! But instead of using American tax dollars to help everyday citizens live healthy and productive lives, the U.S. operates at least 917 military bases in 98 different countries. Claiming that this scale of military footprint abroad is necessary for defensive purposes defies common sense and basic logic. 

Twenty years ago, an academic study outlined the scale of death and destruction left in the wake of the American war machine in Iraq. A pro-peace, anti-imperialist movement failed to truly galvanize around the issue in a way that would lead to real change. The post-9/11 wars have instead dragged on for decades, ever creeping into new corners of the world. Today, we can’t afford to fail again. With conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine dominating the media’s attention, and Joe Biden admitting in his September speech to the UN General Assembly that the world is at an “inflection point,” the time to push for a more peaceable and just foreign policy is now. There is no single panacea for how to achieve this, but one thing is for sure—we cannot count on either major political party.

Movements like the Abandon Harris campaign, which aims to “hold Harris accountable” for her support of the slaughter in Gaza by withholding votes—especially in Michigan—are one example of how we can leverage our political power as citizens for peace. But simply registering a protest vote is not enough. We should look for real alternatives to the sclerotic duopoly offered by the corporate-backed parties. Supporting third party candidates like Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party, Claudia de la Cruz of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, or the independent Dr. Cornel West, each of whom has made demilitarization a major issue of their campaign, is one option. Even if a third party is highly unlikely to capture the White House in 2024, supporting their political operations could be the start of a longer process focused on getting peace candidates from various parties elected to lower offices across the country. Outside of electoral politics the left should engage in grassroots organizing and mass demonstrations reminiscent of the Vietnam-era peace movement. Organizations like CODEPINK and World BEYOND War are doing just that and could serve as focal points for those of us concerned with peace and anti-imperialism. We cannot afford to wait another 20 years. As Martin Luther King Jr. said while denouncing the Vietnam War, “Tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”