March 23, 2026
A man holds a picture of U.S. President Donald Trump upside down after Friday prayers at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Friday, March 20, 2026. Photo by: Vahid Salemi / AP
By Brian Greenspun (contact)
Sunday, March 22, 2026 | 2 a.m.
What do the 42nd president of the United States, a Civil War general who burned Atlanta and an author/songwriter born in the last halfof the 19th century have in common?
At first blush, the answer should be a simple, “not much.” Upon reflection and just a wee bit of research, the answer would be, “a great deal.”
Why? Because the words of President William Jefferson Clinton, William Tecumseh Sherman and James Weldon Johnson tellus all we need to know about why the United States is in a war with Iran — or an excursion, as some would suggest — that doesn’t seem to have an end right now and doesn’t lend itself to simple explanation by the simpletons in government who try, nonetheless, so hard to do give us one.
Let’s start with “Dem Bones” which was a song composed by Johnson and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, in 1928. It was inspired by Ezekiel 37:1-14, which told the story about the Valley of Dry Bones and potential resurrection at God’s command,“leading to the realization of the New Jerusalem.”
While its import is deeply connected to the dream of a New Jerusalem, which powers the fundamentalist vision for the State of Israel by many of the Christian faith, I think of that song more simply. And that is a young boy’s rudimentary understanding about how the body works. And, by extension, Clinton’s far more inspired vision of an interconnected world.
Let me explain. The words from “Dem Bones” create a song about the “toe bone connected to the foot bone … the ankle bone connected to the leg bone … and the neck bone connected to the head bone” — all in the pursuit of a skeletal system that can stand on its own, but only with the help of all the other bones working together.
President Bill Clinton’s world-view, which formed the basis for his foreign policy successes, was that the 20th century was punctuated by examples of countries with disparate internal goals working together for a common goal.
Think about World War I, World War II, the global economic depression of 1929 and numerous efforts to eradicate health challenges that crossed borders and spanned oceans. Think about how the world became interdependent — independent countries necessarily dependent upon one another for survival and shared prosperity — and you get the picture.
In short, just as the knee bone depended upon its connection to the thigh bone, and so on, to enable a person to just stand up, so too has one country, separated by thousands of miles of ocean from another, depended upon an interconnectivity to stand up to the challenges posed by an increasingly difficult world.
That brings me to the war in Iran. And, oh yes, the words of William Tecumseh Sherman.
Gen. Sherman was one of the most successful generals of the Civil War. He was also one of the most brutal, believing that if you are in a war to win, you’ve got to do what was necessary to accomplish that task. He is most often remembered for burning the city of Atlanta on his “march to the sea.”
I don’t expect that most readers will remember these events (yes, I had to do some research) and, certainly, almost every TikTokker will have no idea what I am talking about (this is not a story you can tell in a short video or even fewer words). But if you apply it to President Donald Trump’s war in Iran (however you may feel about its necessity or the civilian competence leading that effort), it is critical to remember the most famous of Sherman’s quotes.
“War is hell.”
That, to me, means that whether you start a war or defend yourself in a war, what happens once the first shots ring out is, at best, anybody’s guess. All the best intentions — to misquote one of my favorite poets — will go awry.
Just like we are witnessing today, as what should have been an easy victory with the proper planning ahead of time is turning into something more. More than we hoped for, more than we wanted and, in some cases, more than those in charge have been able to predict.
Hence, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the destruction of oil fields and infrastructure upon which a significant part of the world relies for petroleum products.
And that is the hell of it.
In an interdependent world where friends and allies plan and execute war and peace together, the backbones of that community hold up to scrutiny and attack. When we try it alone, it is less so.
Trump’s effort to rid the world of the bad guys in Iran and their proxies across the region is a good thing, in my mind. His continued insistence, however, that he can go it alone and alone achieve success, is not only shortsighted but will be short-lived. The world needs all “dem bones” to work together.
Would that we had the leadership to understand this most basic requirement.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
Locally owned and independent since 1950; Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, best news website in the nation & DuPont Award for broadcast journalism
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