Obama Breaks New Ground When It Comes to War With Iran

Source: Tom Dispatch

When I was young, the Philadelphia Bulletin ran cartoon ads that usually featured a man in trouble — dangling by his fingers, say, from an outdoor clock.  There would always be people all around him, but far too engrossed in the daily paper to notice.  The tagline was: “In Philadelphia, nearly everybody reads the Bulletin.”

Those ads came to mind recently when President Obama commented forcefully on war, American-style, in ways that were remarkably radical.  Although he was trying to ward off a threatened Israeli preemptive air strike against Iran, his comments should have shocked Americans — but just about nobody noticed. read more

No Picture

The Slide Toward War

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

Wars are fought because some people decide it is in their interests to fight them. World War I was not started over the Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination, nor was it triggered by the alliance system. An “incident” may set the stage for war, but no one keeps shooting unless they think it’s a good idea. The Great War started because the countries involved decided they would profit by it, delusional as that conclusion was.

It is useful to keep this idea in mind when trying to figure out whether the United States or Israel will go to war with Iran. In short, what are the interests of the protagonists, and are they important enough for those nations to take the fateful step into the chaos of battle? read more