Are we about to get John Bolton's war on Iran?

It's been a little over a year since that old war hawk tucked in as National Security Adviser to an ignorant, impetuous president. Having done their best to break up the alliance agreements that were keeping some uneasy constraint on ever larger conflicts in a dangerous region, now we're getting the sort of headlines we can expect from a rogue regime in Washington bent on catastrophe. "U.S. orders ‘non-emergency’ government employees to leave Iraq". "Skeptical U.S. Allies Resist Trump’s New Claims of Threats From Iran." Here the receding empire goes again ... ginning up a war to distract from our fractures at home.

The world knows better.

But European military allies have questioned whether the threat level against U.S. assets has shifted in recent weeks.

“We haven’t seen anything convincing yet, but tensions are definitely rising,” said one Western diplomat ...

Washington Post

... a senior British military official told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he saw no increased risk from Iran or allied militias in Iraq or Syria.

New York Times

Of course, in 2003, the world knew better as well, when the George W. Bush administration was making up "intelligence" to support its Iraq invasion. Fat lot of good that did millions of Iraqis and so many others killed or left with societies torn apart; fat lot of good that did the thousands of US military personnel murdered or maimed in service of monsters like Dick Cheney and John Bolton last time around.

Let's hope some combination of Trump's feral, canny timidity and world opprobrium hold the USofA back this time around.
...In terms of push back for peace coming from people within this big, confused country, the moment feels more like the awful days immediately after the 9/11 attacks than the eve of Iraq. Even then, a few of us knew our ignorant, overconfident government was on the way to making a hash of Afghanistan (how'd that turn out?). Two years later, by the eve of the Iraq war millions rallied across the globe against the disaster. And empire, led by the likes of Bolton, could not be deterred. The mass peace movement infrastructure that was laboriously built in the '00s has atrophied.

Oh sure, small dedicated historic peace organizations carry on honorably as they have for decades. In Congress, Win Without War has labored to reduce US support for the Saudi war on Yemen that is one of the world's current most extreme human atrocities.

But effectual peace agitation has to break into the actual existing political conversation if it is to achieve any mass heft. And that means, at this moment, making sure that aspiring Democratic presidents ALL put themselves on the right side of history, against a US attack on Iran.

Just Security launched a useful initiative yesterday. They reminded us that Democrats have been to this movie before.

Many Democrats still prominent in public political life voted against the [Iraq] war. Dick Durbin voted no. Bernie Sanders voted no. Robert Menendez voted no. Jack Reed voted no. Nancy Pelosi voted no. Ben Cardin voted no. Patrick Leahy voted no. Patty Murray voted no. Debbie Stabenow voted no. Ron Wyden voted no.

Many Democrats still prominent in public life voted for the war. Joe Biden voted yes. Chuck Schumer voted yes. Steny Hoyer voted yes. Eliot Engel voted yes. Adam Smith voted yes. Adam Schiff voted yes.

The Just Security petition aims to pressure these luminaries to get an impending threat of unnecessary, unwinnable war right this time around.

Most importantly, this initiative aims to pressure Joe Biden to get it right this time -- and to disqualify Biden for the Democratic nomination if he fails to oppose yet another US war. We'll see.