Not Far from Disaster

Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base

Barbara Tuchman wrote in her book The March of Folly:

“Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.”

The past few days I have been working to grade essays from my two American History classes. It takes me anywhere from 10-30 minutes to grade a paper and make comments on it. Since today was my sixty-sixth birthday I took the evening off after grading papers all day to go out with Judy and close friends to my favorite pub. It was a wonderful evening. Tomorrow, and probably Sunday afternoon I will hopefully finish grading, and on my teacher work day Monday will post the grades to the online grade book.

When I think of the man that I have become over the years, one thing I realize is that I am much more skeptical about those in power and their motives. Those motives are usually not nearly as pure, patriotic, or idealistic as their proponents and propagandists claim.

I have also been thinking a lot about the current misbegotten war against Iran launched by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. When I look at these two stubborn and boneheaded men I cannot imagine how either man could ever think that a war against a regime that has been preparing for one over 40 years could think that victory would be easy or cheap.

However, Trump is a ruthless and greedy man who is an imbecile when it comes to understanding the world. He sees the high tech military hardware possessed by the United States and assumes that wars will be quick, easy, and decisive. Netanyahu on the other hand should have learned enough from previous Israeli wars that they often don’t end as the Israeli government planned. Israel does well when it fights nations that have the means to destroy it as it did in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. But when it goes to war against weaker enemies, especially insurgents it struggles. This has been happening since the 1980s despite Israel’s military supremacy in the region.

In the current war he did the Iranians a favor by doing what Austria-Hungary, did in 1914, dragging Imperial Germany, its most powerful and important ally, into what should have been nothing more than a diplomatic crisis or short punitive action against Serbia. That brought all the major powers of Europe into what would become a world war. That war devastated Europe, cost over 20 million lives, brought down empires and destroyed the world order.

The war launched against Iran has the potential to destroy a world order that has lasted since the end of World War Two, and the fall of Communism. The multinational order secured by diplomacy and economic growth and prosperity since is now threatened. Regardless of how the war ends, the United States and many other countries will be on the losing end as the economy built on relatively inexpensive and plentiful oil and natural gas collapses. The Gulf Countries will be among the worst hit, economies and societies built on the prosperity of their oil and gas reserves and industries will be destabilized. Their economies which have expanded as a result into resorts, casinos, sports venues, and tourism, backed up by American and European military assistance will suffer and might even face internal threats to their ruling regimes. Other countries whose economies depend heavily on their political and economic connections with the countries of the region, and dependent on their oil and gas exports will face great challenges.

The United States will deal with the economic, diplomatic, social, and military crises brought on by the war, that neither the Trump Regime nor most of the Republican establishment will not call a war. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler wrote:

“What is the cost of war? what is the bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all of its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years as a soldier I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not only until I retired to civilian life did I fully realize it….”

Butler is even more correct today than when he first wrote these words.

When I look at every comment from Trump and the directors about this ill-conceived, poorly planned, and hastily executed war I am reminded of the words of the immortal T.E. Lawrence.

“The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Bagdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.”

I am tired so I will stop for the night even though I want to write more. I will do that tomorrow night regardless of how many papers remain to grade. Thank you for reading, subscribing, and commenting. All mean a lot to me, especially today.

All the best and please be safe. I don’t think that I will get to the latest “No Kings” protest due to my workload, but I encourage everyone who can to do so.