When diplomacy fails, you get war
Back in around 2013, when I started covering the negotiations that ultimately became the Iran deal, I referred to opponents of the talks as “advocates of war with Iran,” and that sort of became the house style for coverage of the talks at the Huffington Post. We took a lot of heat for that, with opponents of negotiations insisting that they did not, in the end, support war. We countered by saying that there are two ways the ongoing hostility ends: through negotiations, or with war. If you blow up the negotiations, you bring war.
We didn’t know exactly how that war would come -- presumably, we figured, it would initially involve somebody’s oil tankers -- but that a war would come absent negotiations was plain. Iran has been preparing for years for some sort of retaliation to an American provocation, and has a long list of awful things ready to go. But I don’t think they ever dreamed we’d give them such a flashing green light to retaliate while the international community looked on
For centuries, as a civilization, we’ve had a firm custom that governments don’t kill officials of other governments, no matter how odious they are. Whenever a government (like ours) tries to do it, it’s done as a covert operation. Not that that’s any better, but it at least respects the custom. I don’t think anybody needs it explained why even the most rogue governments have abided by it. Yet a man who just a few years ago hadn’t heard of Qassem Suleimani, as The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan notes, and knew virtually nothing about Iran, has broken that taboo. I don’t think we fully grasp what a significant departure this is, and what the ramifications could be.
Australia is on fire, the U.N. says the world has roughly ten years to turn everything around or face various stages of oblivion, and yet here we are on the brink of another war in the Middle East, a war that is ultimately over control of oil -- the very thing that is killing us.
Readers of this email likely remember Eric Byler, my former colleague at The Young Turks, whose work I shared here often. A year ago he moved to Australia with his wife and two young kids, partially to keep them safe from gun violence. They took a beach vacation over New Years, and he sent me a note that included these words: “We‘re safe, but trapped by fires on three sides. The ocean will be our escape if necessary. People in other coastal towns have been evacuated by sea…If the roads open up and the authorities say it is safe, we will leave immediately. But we know that won’t be today. So we are holed up in our hotel room with a blanket at the base of the door to keep the smoke out.”
I asked him to do two things: stay safe, and take notes. They escaped and are safe for now, and he wrote this dispatch for us, and it’s harrowing in how relatable and mundane, yet terrifying, every moment is. Highly recommend the read.
I spent several months working on a story about the unique organizing operation that the Bernie Sanders campaign is putting together. We were planning to run it Thursday morning, but then held it till today. On Thursday night, I thought to myself, as long as we don’t go to war overnight, this’ll be great timing.
No matter what you think of Bernie, though, I think you’ll be able to learn a lot from this story. I know I learned a lot reporting it.