The Proportionality Trap

Edited by Sam Thielman

THIS IS WHAT the United States hit overnight, ostensibly in response to the Iranian downing of an Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz: reservoirs. The Guardian: 

A US attack on two water reservoirs in the Bemani area of Sirik in southern Iran, located on the shores of the strait of Hormuz, has left 20,000 people without drinking water, according to an Iranian water utility company.

Hormozgan province water and wastewater company, or Abfa Hormozgan, said the reservoirs were “targeted and completely destroyed” this morning by US military fire, according to a statement on its website.

The company’s CEO, Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, said the reservoirs provided drinking water to the city of Kohstak and 10 surrounding villages. There are not enough groundwater resources for immediate replacement in this area, Hamzehpour said in a statement carried by the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency, adding that conditions for residents have become “difficult and critical” as temperatures exceed 45C (113F).

Without ever mentioning the reservoirs, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the military command in charge of U.S. forces in the Middle East (or West Asia, if you prefer) and South Asia, called the strike "a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters." The Apache crew was recovered safely and without injury (and via a drone boat, something never previously known to be used on a rescue mission). Twenty thousand Iranians have no drinking water. 

The point here isn't simply the dehumanizing math that goes into converting the worth of a helicopter into civilian suffering and quite possibly downstream deaths. Nor is it that bombing a civilian target like a reservoir is a war crime, although it is. It's that proportionality, in the context CENTCOM is using it, is an escalatory ladder. We've seen this again and again over the past nearly three years of combination genocide and regional war. We saw it from Joe Biden, and now we see it from Donald Trump. 

CENTCOM is using the word "proportional" to signal to the Iranians that they have not escalated during a ceasefire that really is no more than a fig leaf for continued aggression. Instead, CENTCOM seeks to say that all it has done is match Iranian bellicosity in kind. Iran sent missiles and drones at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. And not just any bases: the targets include the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and the Ali al-Salem airfield in Kuwait (a place I've been, coming and going from Iraq embeds long ago). You will remember that this week's aggression followed last week's exchange of fires. They were also premised on the idea of proportionate response. 

I am not writing against the concept of a proportionate response. There are good reasons why international humanitarian law requires it. I want instead to observe that in this war's context, staying under the threshold of retaliation, which is what Trump and CENTCOM mean by "proportional," is chimerical. It's a mirage. It's daring the other side not to respond to being hit. It's a pressure. And pressure, when hemmed in, pushes upwards. That is why Donald Trump is posting this morning like he's at the end of his patience. Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, replied, “We prefer language of diplomacy but speak other languages too.”

You might remember all the way back in October 2023 when the Biden administration engaged in the same sort of thing. Back then, militias in the Iranian coalition attacked U.S. bases in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the region. Their intent was to pressure the United States into reining in Israel, which was sounding the opening overtures of its genocide in Gaza. Instead, the U.S. bombed regional outposts used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and immediately said that it was done striking, so there would be no need for any Iranian retaliation. Nearly three years of this yielded, if we zoom out, consistent escalation that portrayed itself as anything but. 

Trump operates as if these strikes will increase his leverage to deliver his similarly chimerical Really Good Deal. That is what successive presidents (to include Trump himself) thought would be the result of troop surges and airstrikes in Afghanistan. It is what Lyndon Johnson thought would be the result of Rolling Thunder, the terror bombing of the Vietnamese north. Reality intruded. But only after a very long time and an ocean of blood did the Americans acknowledge it.

There is one way and one way out of this war only: to negotiate terms. It is not going to be a negotiation that follows American terms, because Trump launched a war of aggression and lost. Everything Trump has done in these last two months has been an attempt to obscure the magnitude of his disaster. It has been nothing more than a slower climb back up the escalatory ladder. Only this time, 20,000 Iranians have no drinking water.   

HEGSETH VISITS GUANTANAMO today, according to the Pentagon, "to engage with troops." He'll also be at CENTCOM HQ in Tampa for the same stated reason. With Cuba in the crosshairs and Trump sounding like additional targets in Iran will soon come under attack, this is likely going to be an important visit from the secretary of defense. 

THE INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES recently issued a report that treats the costs of basing the U.S. military in Hawaii not as an externalities but central to the extractive and harmful nature of the enterprise. It punctures the claim that military basing is an economic engine for the surrounding area:

Dollar for dollar, military spending creates approximately 5.3 jobs per $1 million invested, compared to 12.3 jobs from the same investment in health care, education, housing, food production, or energy efficiency. Because most service members are legal residents of other states who rotate off the islands every two to three years, a significant share of military payroll represents economic leakage. …

Decades of military use of PFAS (“forever chemicals”) have contaminated soil, groundwater, nearshore waters, fish and human blood far beyond installation boundaries. Remediation at just three installations is conservatively estimated at $493 million — yet cannot fully eliminate PFAS from Hawai’i’s environment. Indirect costs, including elevated cancer rates, drinking water filtration, and lost food production, could reach into the billions. The military has not committed to any meaningful remediation.

These environmental harms fall hardest on Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and low-income residents — communities near military bases that are more likely to report poor health and less access to resources. Military demand for off-base housing also inflates housing costs: in 2024, military personnel occupied 10.3 percent of O’ahu’s rental units, driving up average rents by an estimated 7.1 percent and costing non-military households an additional $234.8 million — about $1,848 per household.