Pity the unhappy people of Iran, involuntary extras in evil men's fantasy theatrics. Or maybe I should say who are the target of an unconstrained little boy who likes blowing things up.
Our country is at war. One of the beatitudes, “Blessed are the makers of peace,” touches closely on our situation, which hovers between predicament and holy opportunity.
What indeed can it mean in such days as we endure, to be ‘peacemakers’? Not ‘just war’ theorists, not ‘pacifists,’ not, surely not war makers. But ‘blessed are the peacemakers,’ ‘the makers of peace.’
The term in the original Greek, is disturbingly concrete, physical. One makes peace in somewhat the way one makes a table or a building, a school or a hospital, something useful or beautiful or both. We make peace in somewhat the way two people make a child. Makers of peace. The task is untidy, unfinished, laborious, always to be started anew....
There are always more idiots who think they can blow things up without consequence -- and without regard for dead children. And the task of a decent people is always the same: to make peace, not wars.
Two days ago, the historian Timothy Snyder offered his two most likely rationales for Trump's excellent little Persian war. He sees:
... two interpretive frameworks: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president of the United States.
From the United States, the most plausible angle of view is domestic politics, not foreign policy. Wars are a tool of undermining and undoing democracies....
At home, we know Trump's approval is cratering, so no wonder he needs a war.
[From afar] ... who might be directly interested in Iranian regime change? Who has given it more thought than Washington? Insofar as there was any sort of foreign policy involved here, I suspect that it was that of countries that the Trump administration considers to be its allies in the region.
The basic structural feature of regional politics is a rivalry between Iran on the one side and Gulf Arab states plus Israel on the other. Given that this structural feature is a far more durable element of politics than the wavering and contradictory statements of the Trump administration, it is a good place to start. And where does it lead?
It leads to personal politics or rather personal gain. Given the stupefyingly overt corruption of the Trump administration, one must ask whether the United States armed forces are now being used on a per-hire basis. ...
The sheiks who pay the bribes to the Trump family are getting what they want. Most certainly, Bibi Netanyahu is getting what he wants from his dopey friends.
Let's hope this war stay "little." People far more knowledgeable than I doubt that "limited" war in the region is possible ...
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