As the world awaits with dread Iran’s response to Israel’s assassination of a chief Hamas negotiator in Iran’s capital Tehran on the day of the new president’s inauguration—and the Israeli (and American and British) response to that response, it is essential to bear in mind that this is not a problem that will resolve itself, that the “adults” will come in and fix.
Those who elect to take responsibility for the course of civilization must step up their activities rapidly and qualitatively, to bring into being a new paradigm in which the terrifyingly dangerous threat of outbreak of general war on multiple fronts, were impossible, rather than a necessary result of prevailing trends.
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” observes the soldier Marcellus in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. That rot emanates not only from a corrupt individual, or from the famously action-averse Hamlet, but from the society as a whole, in which no one is effectively charting the future course of the nation, leading to the disastrous results to the nation as a whole that unfold by the play’s conclusion.
Something is beyond rotten in the state of the trans-Atlantic world today: economic policies that are worse than incompetent, cultural initiatives that hinder rather than harness the creative potential of the human individual, science corrupted to unworthy political ends, and military goals that will spell the end of civilization, globally.
On the subject of rottenness, British “stink tanks” have taken the lead in promoting rapid, pre-emptive military action against Iran directly. De-escalating tensions would only embolden Iran, the argument goes, and therefore “the U.S. and Israel need to be willing to target nuclear facilities, drone factories and IRGC bases on Iranian soil. As such, Israel should expand its power projection with the aim of destabilizing the Iranian regime.…” Where will this lead?
One part of the answer is in the U.S. Department of Defense making more specific announcements about deployments of troops and matériel to the region. The Secretary of Defense “will be directing multiple, forthcoming force-posture moves to bolster force protection for U.S. forces regionwide, to provide elevated support to the defense of Israel and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to this evolving crisis,” said a Pentagon spokesperson. F-16 fighter jets are being reported flying over Ukraine.
In Lebanon, where Israel is also expected to strike, the U.S. embassy has urged Americans to “book any ticket available to them” to leave the country.
Contrast the “security” supposedly achieved through military dominance with the security of a productive economy, of meaningful cooperative relations with other nations. As the Anglo-American leadership spends resources it doesn’t have on destructive military operations, India has announced that it will move forward on a major new port on its western coast. When completed, it is projected to handle a freight volume half that of the world’s very largest port.
But small specks of good are not enough to turn night into day.
There is a week to build up the August 9 meeting of the International Peace Coalition, which is bringing together an increasing array of leaders from around the world who are electing to act for peace, the peace of development and growth.
