World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The political environment is completely surreal. I have read the news about the Iranian missile strike against the military base in Iraq and am now wondering what the US response might be. I am afraid to speculate and apologize tonight because I do not have the patience to try to analyze this situation dispassionately.

There are wildfires in Australia which have burned 20 million acres, killed perhaps a billion of the continent’s wildlife, and killed 25 people so far. And yet the world continues to pretend that climate change is not an urgent matter.

There were earthquakes in Puerto Rico which have devastated parts of the island which has yet to recover from hurricane damage, and American citizens are suffering with little acknowledgment from their government.

We have an American President making threats about disproportionate military responses and destroying cultural centers in Iran. A war is starting because a single defense contractor was killed in a war zone.

I am not sure how we got to the situation where one death in a combat area which has experienced nothing but war for 17 years and 500,00 deaths may lead to a more general war. But we should also consider the following:

• 1) the US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and is still fighting there;
• 2) the US invaded Iraq in March 2003 and is still fighting there ;
• 3) the US sent troops into Syria in September 2014 and is still there guarding oil wells.

Is there any evidence at all that the exercise of US military power has attained any strategic objective in any of these conflicts? Have the US military efforts led to peace? Is there any reason (other than wishful thinking) at all to believe that US military actions against Iran will produce an outcome favorable to either the US or to Iran?

Was the US successful in Vietnam?

Was the Soviet Union successful in Afghanistan?

Decisions are being made by a President with no military experience and one who most likely could not identify Iran on a map. And the Congress is unwilling to exercise any of its constitutional powers to declare war. And the American public seems unwilling to force the government to pay attention to the myriad of social and economic problems making life difficult for all but the richest.

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“He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina