the war is coming, charles
"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
_Winston Churchill
It's an absurdity, really, that there are opposing sides in this thing. America, Iran. The West, the Middle East. Republicans, Democrats. It's ridiculous. Everyone knows that this war would be devastating to all of us. It's like two guys driving a car down the middle of the wrong side of the freeway, having an argument about which way to swerve to avoid the oncoming traffic.
Ra ra ra. We're all on the losing team.
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"This may not be a 'grand bargain' or a move toward 'the normalization of relations,' as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted, but it is a gesture of American opening toward the major emergent power of the Middle East, one riding a combined wave of resurgent Shiism and resurgent oil prices. As such, it is critical."
_Roger Cohen, International Herald Tribune
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So we make an offer to open direct talks, but the stipulation is that they do what we want them to - before they can talk about not wanting to doing it. It's an ultimatum in a diplomatic package, a straw man, a catch-22. The west knows in its heart that Iran can't abandon its enrichment program, especially when it can be seen as caving to the United States. And Iran knows that US policymakers, who still (quite insanely) believe they can preserve US hegemony in the world, can't tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.
Has everyone on earth gone crazy? Why is noone willing to get serious about avoiding this shit?
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"Two scenarios are opening up. There is a benign one and a malign one.
In the benign one, the doves, led by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have won the argument in Washington.
This move, it is hoped, will lead to direct talks with Iran, which will agree on a package under which to end its enrichment of uranium.
In exchange, it will receive a bag of goodies that will include help with civil nuclear power (including a nuclear power station and the fuel to go with it) and trade concessions.
In the malign scenario, the hawks in Washington have gone along with the move in the belief that an offer of direct talks now will improve their arguments for military action later. It also helps to keep Russia and China on board.
The hawks think this initiative will lead nowhere because Iran will not negotiate seriously even if it agrees to talks - and when it all breaks down, they will have been shown to have gone the extra mile.
They would then press for a mandatory Security Council resolution ordering Iran to suspend enrichment and then, if Russia and China blocked sanctions, they would call for unilateral measures by the US and its allies.
If that failed, then eventually there would be discussion of a military strike."
_Paul Reynolds, World affairs correspondent, BBC News website
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"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865