The Oligarchical Corridor - A Source of War -- Timothy Snyder

[erronis]

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-oligarchical-corridor

A thoughtful piece by Timothy Snyder examining the players, reasons and irrationalities of US involvement in the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Is this an American war? It surely is, in the sense that Americans will bear some of its consequences. And it surely is, in that American voters are among its causes, having brought Donald Trump to power. But in its causes and in its purposes, one sees very little that connects directly with the people or the institutions of the United States of America.

If we examine the origins, or what we can discern of them, we get an inkling of something rather different: a closed domain of international oligarchs, exploiting the state's power and patriotic sentiment, while creating a world order in which the American state is much weaker, or simply ceases to function. An oligarchical corridor.

Is the war American in its origins? Can we find the genesis of Trump's war against Iran in the United States? There is of course a domestic politics to the war. Trump has already telegraphed that he wants to exploit this war to try to fix ("federalize" ) the elections of November 2026, and preserve his power with artificial majorities of supine Republicans. But that would work with any war. And, for all we know, by the summer or autumn Trump may well have moved on to another war in Cuba, or yet another one after that.

. . .

[markodochartaigh]

1. A new Axis of Evil,

our oiligarchs, political, economic, tech, and religious. They ally, or fight, with each other for their own benefit and with no regard for the masses other than the pleasure they get from exercising their power over us.