If you are trying to avoid a confrontation, the smart move would be to give your neighbors room. Use peaceful speech, be understanding, forget past issues and possibly stop all spying and surveillance of them. If we choose to not do these things we are cornering in our neighbor and chances are sooner or later he will make a mistake from the stress that our constant presence is placing upon them.
In America’s case, the military has brought numerous war ships in and around the Straits of Hormuz off the coast of Iran. We are occupying their destroyed neighboring Iraq to the west amd we are also occupying their neighbor Afghanistan to the north east. We have broken the nuclear agreement that we and our allies ratified, we put economic sanctions on them, we told our allies not to buy their oil or trade with them, and we told them if they do any harm to us or our allies we will attack them. In the last few weeks alone, we accused them of bombing oil tankers, and now we are saying that they have blown up our drone over international waters – they claim the drone was flying over their airspace.
Many times people working in opposing militaries want to go to war. Some military brass just want to go to war, it opens up opportunity for advancement for them or maybe their superiors, it might give them monetary advantage, and a chase to live out their childhood dreams. The bottom line today is we are doing a very poor job of avoiding conflict.
Trump may want to avoid war but he has two untrustworthy hellhounds on his heels, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, not to mention a long list of other war profiteers! It is not clear yet if Mr Trump is doing an effective job avoiding war but I don’t think he will risk his popularity to protect the innocent from conflict either. At this point he might be looking at this possible engagement as an opportunity to get re-elected. And I don’t think that he will win an election at this point without a war.
From their behavior, it is also clear that the Iranians don’t want war – that’s why they made the nuclear deal. They actually have a very high percentage of young people who don’t want trouble and are western-minded. If we snub their affection, we won’t be doing anyone any favors.
I think our job at this point is to make our opinions known in this so-called democracy where one man’s whims can lead us to war with a major nation. It is: We the people! Not: We the arms manufacturers, We the Oligarchs, We the lobbyists, or even We the Crooked Politicians. It’s time for democracy and it’s time for diplomacy of which our State Department has been purposely depleted. If you want war you will get war but if you want peace you have to work at it and it starts by staying out of your neighbors yard uninvited! It’s time to tell the warhawks that we don’t need more adversaries and that we need more peace!!!
Denis says
Amen.
Instead of sanctions, toxic tweets and more troops, how about good old fashioned diplomacy?
The Iranians were living up to their part of the nuclear agreement, and our allies approved of it. If part of the agreement is weak, ie sunset clause, then improve it. Don’t back out of it with no replacement (Ditto healthcare).
The last thing we need is anouther endless war, especially when Putin is their ally.
Jack Jones says
Exactly, the sad truth is the Arms Dealers in the US are intoxicated with wealth ,endless war and a huge monopoly! Too many retired military on the board of trustees and too many war hawks in prominent places!
Phil says
Trump and his warhawks never consider the large young population that are hoping for the USA to change their lives for good and not to be demonized.
Blessed are the peacemakers like Jack.
Jack Jones says
I love you phil, you are a great guy!
Daniel Jones says
I basically agree with Jack Jones in this article. His precepts for Peace are sound and Truthful.
But, because I am behind on many developments in Our Political Culture, I have to ask:
“How did the United Sates violate the nuclear arms treaty We had with Iran?
Please bring me up to date about this? Dan
Jack Jones says
Trump ripped up the Nuclear Agreement, because it had President Obama’s name on it and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was concerned that Iran would eventually get a nuclear bomb after the agreement expires. Instead of catching more bees with honey , we and our allies , The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia chose to carry a stick instead! Not everyone in the US , Israel and Saudi feels this way, it’s just sad that the right wing political groups are in power at the present time! Diplomacy, and true friendship is the only answer! Like Denis said earlier we could have added some years to the agreement with the olive leaf, free trade and humanitarian efforts. The truth is we could of at least had ten years of working together and dialogue but now we have a mess ! Most countries that have resources that we are interested in want a nuclear arsenal to protect themselves from The US ! Iraq, Libya paid the ultimate price for going along with our demands, it’s just a shame we destroyed two countries who were trying to play ball and gave up their nuclear ambitions! Why should anybody trust us now !
Jack Jones says
Basically, we and our allies said if Iran slowed their nuclear ambitions way down , The US and it’s allies would drop the economic sanctions that were placed upon Iran and the length of the agreement would be ten years! Thank you for posting a reply!