Ten years after the US invaded Iraq in 2003, another Middle East war looms large between the West and Muslim states.
Signs point to the strong possibility that Israel, and its US Zionist supporters, remain determined, first, to draw the US into the Syrian Civil War, and second, to lead Israel in a joint attack against Iran.
All from the skies, of course. Boots on the ground have not served well in the past, too visible, too costly in "our" lives lost.
At a cabinet meeting Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel was prepared to attack Syria for the third time this month "to stop the transfer of advanced Fateh-110 missiles to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah."
Why not? He got away with it before, using the "self defense" righteous rationale that empires employ as they increase their power one step at a time. This is the way empires grow. It is also the way they die, one pyrrhic victory after another.
Secretary of State John Kerry is doing his best to persuade Russia to help the US pull the Syria parties to peace talks before a civil war extends beyond its boundaries.
He will find little support from US domestic Zionist forces who are as hungry for war as is Israel
Prime Minister Netanyahu's continued "defense" actions threatens another war between the West and Muslim states, 10 years after the US invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.
The ostensible reason for that invasiion was to eradicate Iraq's non-existent WMDs. The American public was primed for the war. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld leadership team had whipped the American public into such a post-911 war fever that all normal reason and logic had been drained away.
In the picture above, Iraqi citizens are walking around tanks on a bridge near the entrance to the besieged city of Basra. The picture was taken 10 days after the war began. It was a time of great uncertainty as Iraqis struggled to adjust to the presence of another foreign army on their soil.
These Iraqi citizens are caught in the middle of an empire's over-reach, a moment in time when the US, still reeling from the attacks of 9/11, goaded by its Israeli ally and its own domestic Zionist patriots, entered a war against Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with the horrors of 9/11.
After the Asculum battle, the historian Plutarch conveyed words and wisdom that live on:
"The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him."
When empires recognize they are losing too much in battles they win, it is past time to stand down. Unfortunately, empires become blind to reality and instead of withdrawing from battle, they plunge further downward toward their own demise.
Patrick J. Buchanan and Eric S. Margolis, two intrepid columnists, found a warning from King Pyrrhus as they reflected on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war. Their columns were linked together in the Washington Report. Read both columns here.
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