Juan Cole: On How War with Iran might Destroy the United States
[Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, maintains the blog Informed Comment. His most recent book, just out in paperback, is Engaging the Muslim World.]
David Broder is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark.
So I am sure he by now regrets his piece on Saturday in the Washington Post on how Obama can get the country out of the economic doldrums.
Broder says that there are two engines for recovery from a Depression or a deep recession. One is the market workings of the business cycle, which are mysterious. The other is war, or even, apparently, preparation for it. Since, he says, Obama cannot really affect the business cycle, his best option would be to prepare for conflict with Iran. He does not appear to envisage a war but seems to think just getting the country on a war footing would do the trick. I don’t understand the American fascination with war. We’ve been at war one way or another all my life. Is that normal? And nowadays the politicians have pulled off the trick of having us be at war and not even notice it. Almost nobody reading this could even tell me how many US troops died in Afghanistan last month, or even how many are there and which provinces exactly they are fighting in. Broder can only broach this absent-minded atrocity because we have all developed war dementia– it is off our minds, as the Latin indicates.
Read entire article at Informed Comment (Blog)
David Broder is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark.
So I am sure he by now regrets his piece on Saturday in the Washington Post on how Obama can get the country out of the economic doldrums.
Broder says that there are two engines for recovery from a Depression or a deep recession. One is the market workings of the business cycle, which are mysterious. The other is war, or even, apparently, preparation for it. Since, he says, Obama cannot really affect the business cycle, his best option would be to prepare for conflict with Iran. He does not appear to envisage a war but seems to think just getting the country on a war footing would do the trick. I don’t understand the American fascination with war. We’ve been at war one way or another all my life. Is that normal? And nowadays the politicians have pulled off the trick of having us be at war and not even notice it. Almost nobody reading this could even tell me how many US troops died in Afghanistan last month, or even how many are there and which provinces exactly they are fighting in. Broder can only broach this absent-minded atrocity because we have all developed war dementia– it is off our minds, as the Latin indicates.