In 2009, countries have reached perilous new levels of conflict, tension and military spending characterised by nuclear proliferation, ideological warfare and pre-emptive invasions of sovereign nations. As news reports highlight an intensifying competition over natural resources, the international community is faced with a stark choice - to share resources and cooperate, or to continue on the path to further warfare.
Remembrance Day was marred by the unacknowledged deaths in Iraq - a genocide that threatens to outstrip the horrors of Rwanda in the numbers killed and displaced
Once upon a time, people researched and wrote reports about lower defense spending and converting the military-industrial complex into a peacetime economy.
What has possessed the Bush administration to pursue its grievances against Iran when it can’t cope with the wars it is failing to wage, let alone win, in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan?
When I wrote about the “end of history” almost twenty years ago, one thing that I did not anticipate was the degree to which American behavior and misjudgments would make anti-Americanism one of the chief fault-lines of global politics. And yet, particularly since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that is precisely what has happened, owing to four key mistakes made by the Bush administration.
This past May, in an unheralded and almost unnoticed move, the Energy Department signaled a fundamental, near epochal shift in US and indeed world history: we are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age and have entered the Age of Insufficiency.
President George Bush will have spent more than $1 trillion on military adventures by the time he leaves office at the end of next year, more than the entire amount spent on the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.
There is no shortage of examples of historical points of friction between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States to draw upon in order to illustrate the genesis of the current level of tension. One can point to the Islamic revolution that cast aside America’s staunch ally, Reza Shah Pahlevi, the period of reactionary exportation of Islamic “revolution” that followed, the take over of the US Embassy and subsequent holding of Americans hostage (replete with a failed rescue mission), the Iranian use of proxy’s to confront American military involvement in Lebanon, inclusive of the bombing of the Marine barracks and US Embassy compounds, America’s support of Saddam Hussein during the 8-year war between Iran and Iraq, the ‘hot’ conflict between Iran and the United States in the late 1980’s, or Iran’s ongoing support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon. The list could continue.
