Iran: Rumors of War<\/p>\n
Dispatches From The Edge<\/p>\n
Dec. 1, 2018<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iran Agenda Today: The Real Story Inside Iran And What\u2019s Wrong with U.S. Policy\u201d By Reese Erlich<\/p>\n
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group<\/p>\n
New York and London 2019<\/p>\n
Want another thing to keep you up at night?<\/p>\n
Consider a conversation between long-time Middle East reporter Reese Erlich and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles Freeman, Jr. on the people currently directing the Trump administration\u2019s policy toward Iran. Commenting on National Security Advisor John Bolton\u2019s defense of the invasion of Iraq, Freeman says \u201cThe neoconservative group think their good ideas were poorly implemented in Iraq,\u201d and that the lesson of the 2003 invasion that killed upwards of 500,000 people and destabilized an entire region is, \u201cIf at first you don\u2019t succeed, do the same thing again somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
That \u201csomewhere else\u201d is Iran, and Bolton is one of the leading voices calling for confronting the Teheran regime and squeezing Iran through draconian sanctions\u00a0\u201cuntil the pips squeak.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Since sanctions are unlikely to have much effect\u2014they didn\u2019t work on North Korea, have had little effect on Russia and failed to produce regime change in Cuba\u2014the next logical step, Erlich suggests, is a military attack on Iran.<\/p>\n Such an attack would be a leap into darkness, since most Americans\u2014and their government in particular\u2014are virtually clueless about the country we seem bound to go to war with. Throwing a little light on that darkness is a major reason Erlich wrote the book. For over 18 years he has reported on Iran, talking with important government figures and everyday people and writing articles on the country that increasingly looks to be our next little war. Except it will be anything but \u201clittle.\u201d<\/p>\n History matters when it comes to life and death decisions like war, but unfortunately, one of the mainstream media\u2019s glaring deficiencies is its lack of interest in the subject. If newspapers like the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0had bothered to read Rudyard Kipling on Afghanistan or T.E. Lawrence on the British occupation of Iraq, the editors might have had second thoughts about supporting the Bush administration\u2019s invasions of those countries. Of course, this was not just the result of wearing historical blinders. As Erlich points out, the mainstream media almost always follows in the wake of American foreign policy, more cheerleader than watchdog.<\/p>\n