The View From Olympus 21: Terrorist Attack

One of the more obvious facts about our country's situation is that we cannot afford another war. We cannot afford it financially. Another massive explosion of debt (the Iraq war cost three trillion, including veteran's care, and Afghanistan is on its way to two trillion) could bring about the collapse of American government paper, and with it the dollar. The consequences of that would be far more dire than the actions of any foreign “threats.”We cannot afford another war militarily either, because our recent record suggests we will probably lose. Unless someone is foolish enough to take us on in Second Generation war, our Second Generation military will suffer another defeat. Like other Second Generation armed services, it cannot beat the Third Generation without overwhelming material superiority. It cannot defeat Fourth Generation opponents even with huge material superiority. Since more and more wars are Fourth Generation, our only rational option is to stay out of them, at least until we either reform our obsolescent services or simply send them home and save some money.For several years, the most likely new war facing us has been a war with Iran. Such a war might begin as a Second Generation air and sea war, which we would win. But a defeated Iran would be likely to come apart as a state, facing us with yet another region of stateless disorder. Regardless whether or not we intervened on the ground at that point, the forces of 4GW would have another win.It should therefore not be too great a reach in logic, even for Congress, to grasp the fact that we need to avoid war with Iran. The Obama administration has grasped it, and is currently doing an admirable job of war-avoidance. There is a genuine prospect of not only a nuclear agreement with Iran, but of a whole new strategic relationship, one that would push an Iranian war completely off the table.Now comes the curious part: a bi-partisan coalition of senators and congressmen is doing everything in its power to sabotage the deal with Iran and put us back on the course to war. A 52-page Senate bill (that's a short one), the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, would impose a whole new set of economic sanctions on Iran. Its passage would run a strong risk of killing the negotiations. Iran could only remain at the table if it agreed to swallow a major and public humiliation. The Iranian government may not do that; it may be politically unable to do that even if it wants to.And oh, by the way, the Senate bill requires the United States to provide military support to Israel if it attacks Iran. Not if Israel is attacked by Iran; we are in another Mideast war if Israel itself is the attacker. And they say Kaiser Wilhelm II gave a “blank check” to Vienna in 1914...This provision of the Senate bill points to the most important fact about it: it was de facto written in Tel Aviv. It was sponsored by Israel's Likud government, it serves that foreign government, and it threatens to take the United States to war for the interests of Israel against our own interests.How could such a thing happen? Because almost all members of Congress live in mortal terror of the Israeli lobby. Every Senator or Representative who has dared to take the lobby on has lost his seat. It pours enormous amounts of money into funding his opposition, and he loses. The Israeli lobby owns Congress like a kid owns a yo-yo, and it plays with it in the same way.Given the multitude of disasters involvement in another war would probably bring to this country, the Israeli lobby's push for the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 is nothing less than a terrorist attack. Its weapons are money and votes, not bombs, but the effects could easily be the same: thousands of Americans dead and billions (or trillions) of money lost. The damage to our economy could be fatal. And in the end, the Fourth Generation would win another victory.Lose-lose is seldom wise policy. Is there a chance the American people could wake up on this one, the way they did to stop an attack in Syria?