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all over the region. Iran cannot be understood apart from this reality. The U.S.--encamped and asea on Iran's borders, spying on Iran, no doubt sending covert ops into Iran, and making almost daily hostile statements about Iran--has a history of interference with Iran for half a century. Do you just wipe out all this recent history and interpret everything Iran does as having aggressive intent--as opposed to defensive intent?
Recent events, current conditions and the history of U.S. policy on Iran, are the most pertinent things to consider, in trying to judge Iran's intent. You say they want "a Shia dominated arc of the ME spreading from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon." Doesn't the U.S. want a U.S.-dominated arc of the ME encompassing as much oil as possible?
Can't say the U.S. wants a "democracy-dominated arc" cuz, hey, the U.S. loves the sheiks of araby a lot, for their oil, not for their "democracy." The U.S. doesn't give a crap about democracy. It seeks market dominance for its multinational corporations and war profiteers, and, in exchange, is more than glad to wink at the sheiks and their highnesses' peculiar ways. It's not for anybody's "democracy" that Bush Jr. and pals destroyed our own. The Pentagon is calling the shots anyway. This is U.S. policy--to dominate the ME. Has been for half a century. Is now. So what's so surprising or aggressive about a ME country wanting its own arc of influence and protection? They live there. It's their region.
That's all I'm saying. Instead of looking at the ME as a "theater of war," try for a minute to look at it as a region that has a right to self-determination, where people are feeling more than a little pissed off at their own "sheiks" and at our connivance with the bastards oppressing them, and who have a legitimate interest in governments more to their liking--like the Shia government of Iran--not a democracy, by our lights, but orders of magnitude better than Saudi Arabia. Iran has a right to allies and a right to defend itself, and, as for covert influence, what government doesn't do covert influence, I ask you? It's almost the definition of a government on the world stage. So we're going to nuke 'em cuz they're arms dealing or because they are covertly harassing Israel? Come on. You think WE are not arms dealing over the whole bloody world?! And are we not drone-bombing more civilians every week in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and who even knows what the point of what we're doing in Libya is--"mistakenly" bombing rebels, civilians and loyal military alike? Point or no point, that's what we're doing. And we're going to hate Iran, and target it for war, because they may be doing a bit of the same (if true)?
Why not call off the dogs of war--and try to look at things differently? What the hell are we DOING in the ME anyway? We should be spending those resources converting to non-oil energy just as fast as our very creative people can do so. We should be throwing EVERY defense dollar into it. That will finish off the oil moguls of The East for good. Stupid, stupid, STUPID policy to waste all this grief and our viability as a country trying to corner a vanishing resource--to enrich corporations who don't give goddamn about us.
What to do about Israel? If Israel would start becoming a good neighbor, we might not have to do anything. We could all just concentrate on "green" cars and "green" container ships. But they're entangled in a bloody mess, partly their doing, partly ours--basically a civil war situation, like Ireland or Colombia, or the Hutu's and the Tutsi's. Tribal warfare--a bloody awful thing, not easily ended. It just drives me nuts that the trillions of dollars wasted on weaponry and militarism could have SOLVED almost ANY problem we are looking at ANYWHERE, including Israel/Palestine, and Israel's vulnerability in a hostile region. Israelis have as much right to be there as the Iranians have to be in Iran or the Palestinians have to be in Palestine. But a long standing civil war creates too much profit for the war profiteers--mindbogglingly too much--who perpetuate it with a vengeance, and with each death, hundreds of civil warriors are created, on both sides. Civil war is awful that way. Its proximate horrors create endemic hatred.
I think we need to look at this--Israel's situation--in a new way, too. Maybe we need to recognize that the founders of Israel and the western governments went about creating Israel in the wrong way, to begin with. Why not apologize for it, hammer swords into plowshares and share the grief? With global warming, and the insane looting of everything by the rich of the western world, we're all going to be up shit creek soon, anyway. Why doesn't somebody do something generous that will change the paradigm of war and more war?
And I'm only putting this on the U.S. and Israel, for the moment, because they are the powerful parties. Why can't the powerful come up with some NEW ideas--other than killing people and imprisoning them and stealing their land and making their lives hell? And it isn't just Israel. This is now the U.S. modus operandi. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In Libya. In Colombia. Now in Honduras. Where are we going to extend this war paradigm to next? We have done Israel NO FAVOR by arming them to the teeth. Our war profiteers bear the most responsibility for polluting Israel with the idea that they can exist in the ME as an armed fortress. I really don't blame Israelis for this. Theirs is a tiny, vulnerable country that had to get help where it could--which made them prey to our war profiteers and empowered their war profiteers and militarists. And now we're all stuck with this situation on a dying planet.
Despair is what I feel, thinking of Israel. I don't have any answers. But I know what ISN'T an answer--what ISN'T viable--and that is Israel as a sort of medieval fortress, bristling with armaments--while even its own people are starting to riot because of the costs of war! There is no just end to the tragedy that is Israel but there COULD BE a bette future. There is no just end to the tragedy that is the Middle East--once the "cradle of civilization"--but there COULD BE a better future. The wounds of the past cannot be healed, but there COULD BE a better future--If we could only think about it differently. I know it takes more than that--it takes democratic power, it takes organization, it takes a lot of will to turn off the war paradigm and start creating something better. The ME needs this. Israel needs this. We need this. And the world needs this. A peaceful future.
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