The world just got much more dangerous.
I was worried about the U.S. becoming Germany in 1932-1933.
Maybe there is a more dangerous history to consider: August, 1914.
Timeline:
***Trump and Netanyahu spoke by phone on Monday. Trump said the phone call “went very well, very smooth.”
*** Trump told reporters after the phone call that the U.S. negotiators would be meeting with Iran on Thursday (yesterday) and that “We’re trying to make a deal [with Iran] so that there’s no destruction and death." Trump said that the phone call included things Israel would not do to blindside the U.S. “They’re just asking for things that you can’t do.”
*** Then, on Thursday Israel bombed multiple sites in Iran, focusing on its presumed nuclear bomb production facilities. Surprise!
*** Iran's foreign minister went on TV to announce, "Such acts of aggression by the Zionist regime against Iran could not have occurred without the coordination and authorization from the United States."
Iran is already saying it plans to retaliate by bombing American facilities in the region. Tit. Tat. National pride requires Iran do something. Perhaps it will be something "proportionate." Perhaps something a little extra. This isn't optional. Its defense credibility requires it. If a country is assaulted and does nothing, both friends and enemies know it can be pushed around, so enemies will do it again.
The risk of nuclear war involving the U.S. just got much higher. The deliberate war-gaming of the U.S. and USSR of the post-1962 Missile Crisis era is now passé. Now military leaders praise the surprise attack from out of nowhere, using a tool no one expects: Bin Laden’s 9-11 weaponization of airlines; Russian bots to influence American elections; Israel's exploding hand radios to attack Hezbollah; Ukraine's hidden drones to destroy Russian bombers. The new game is trickery and surprise.
I learned 45 years ago, as a new Jackson County commissioner, when I talked to our public safety leaders about what preparation the county had in place for a nuclear war, that even asking the question positioned me as a kook. I argued that we are the local authority on the ground tasked with taking charge, keeping order, keeping public facilities working. Citizens would look to us.
They told me the county has nothing. No shelters. No food or water. No radiation monitors. No plans even. They gave me political advice: Don't bring it up publicly or you will look unhinged. It is too big. We treat it as impossible.
We have been in a long period of continuity in the U.S. since 1865. That is unusual in modern history. Other countries have experienced near-total discontinuity, involving a remake of their people coming from war, revolution, or famine. Each had its turn: Germany. Japan. China. Jews. Poland. Ukraine. Russia/USSR. India/Pakistan. The Middle East. Multiple places in Africa. Not us. Not yet.
Since we cannot talk about what happens in and after nuclear war, I will let Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of the Office of National Intelligence do it.
She just returned from visiting Hiroshima. She published a short video.
[A]s we stand here today, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers. Perhaps it’s because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won’t have access to. So it’s up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness. We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust.
Our country's voters put our lives in the hands of Donald Trump, a "stable genius." Israel's put it into the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu. The internal politics of Iran put it into the hands of the Ayatollah.
If it seems too weird to prepare for nuclear war, readers might instead make plans to survive a hurricane or earthquake, wherever you live. The preparations might come in handy, whatever happens.
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com/ Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]
14 comments:
Israel apparently blindsided the US and made us less safe. We fund Israeli military and are partly responsible for their actions. Of course Trump’s rejection of Obama’s negotiations with Iran during his first term set in motion this mess, but the Israeli leadership resembles Trump and can’t be trusted. Maybe even Trump is starting to realize that.
The comments by the 2028 Republican Presidential candidate Gabbard are disingenuous and self serving. Nobody, certainly not Democrats, are "fomenting tensions", that's just bull.
At this sad juncture it appears that one combatant is bent on extermination and the other is suicidal, so yeah, pick a side.
Netanyahu is simply enforcing what others have at least paid lip service to for many years now—Iran cannot be permitted to have nukes. Fortunately for world security, Iran has isolated itself in the region even from—especially from—its fellow Muslim nations, and with Assad gone and not replaced as such. Iran has made its bed. Like it or not, this has to be done, for the greater good.
Iran was about to build nukes. Iran has been saying for years that its purpose was the destruction of Israel, and then the United States.
Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic state of Iran, said that the regime’s goal was the conquest of the entire world by Islam, and that if Iran burned in the process, it was fine with him. An entire regime, in other words, with the mentality of a suicide bomber.
Israel, faced with an irrational and implacable enemy, is determined to survive. War is what it takes.
Now that Netanyahu has turned Gaza to rubble, he thinks he’s ready to take on Iran. Trump wants to kick the Palestinians out of Gaza, have the U.S. take over and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” With maniacs like Trump, Netanyahu, Putin and Kim Jong Un in charge of nuclear arsenals, of course were closer to Mutually Assured Destruction. The old maxim still applies: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
Two bumper stickers from the late 60s
War is diplomacy by other means
One nuclear bomb can ruin your day
Steps taken by US presidents set the stage for these events in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Truman greenlit the notion that Palestine should be the Jewish homeland, and Eisenhower subverted a democratically elected government in Iran and installed the Shah of Iran. What may have been a tactical decision at the time has borne poisonous fruit strategically for the world.
This is like trying to predict the outcome of a multi-layered chess game with a rotating group of different players.
These rivalries go back millennia as do each of their convictions about what is right and just. The concept of compromise is also anathema to these honor and shame cultures so there never will be peace.
Israel thinks it’s ready to take on Iran … and, judging by the results so far, it’s right.
Judging by the results so far, it's not likely to make Israel or the Middle East any safer.
The Middle East is already safer, thanks to the elimination of a significant portion of the Iranian high command and their nuclear scientists, along with much of their nuclear hardware and military capabilities. And Israel has only just started.
Look at how Hezbollah ended up. The same fate awaits the Iranian regime and their terrorist fanatic Islamic conquest mentality.
Shouldn’t we be more worried about the message Gabbard is disseminating and how does help Putin?
Let’s be clear: the source of the present conflict started in 1947 with the creation of the Israeli state. This is a modern conflict no matter how the press wants to dress it up with biblical overtones.
This is just the latest war. 100 years from now it will still be going on. Why can't the just live together in peace? Because they don't want to. So, they won't.
If Isreal was a Muslin country, it wouldn't be happening. What does that tell you about religion?
The source of the present conflict is the 7th Century CE declaration that Jerusalem is a Muslim holy city.
Jews had already been there for millennia. “Palestine” is a Roman name from “Philistines”, who were not Arabs.
Post a Comment