Skip to main content

War with Iran

As there are voices, certainly in some quarters, increasingly calling for an attack on Iran - who's to benefit from that is never articulated - one Newsweek columnist (republished on The Daily Beast)in "The Case for Bombing Iran Shows Hawks Wrong All Over Again" calls for an examination of the facts and concludes:

"I don’t want a nuclear-armed Iran any more than Ferguson does. But I also don’t want to be jollied into another war, having just helped as a U.S. taxpayer to spend more than $1 trillion on the biggest fiasco in our foreign-policy history that killed tens of thousands and displaced countless others and brought us a rather long list of problems, on assurances like these. We cannot foreclose the possibility that a strike against Iran might one day be defensible or necessary. But we should be acknowledging that prospect humbly, and with awareness of the certain fact that it will unleash forces that we can’t anticipate or contain, which is a far different thing from a blithe call from Harvard Yard for “creative destruction.” You’d think if our war caucus had learned anything in the past decade, they’d have learned that."

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland