Iran Bombing Threat: Creating a Mindset that Leads to War
By Chris Iosso, an editorial
published by Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice
The first thing one encounters in discussing the war drumbeat targeting Iran is the one-sidedness of the debate. Glenn Greenwald of Salon gives a quick summary on this point, and James Wall, former Christian Century editor, describes the same reality. This suggests that the talk of war with Iran, though helpfully called, “loose talk,” by President Obama in his Sunday, March 4, speech to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is actually quite deliberate and orchestrated talk designed to create a mindset favoring war. And even if this talk is a repeated strategy to distract the U.S. public from continued settlements or other Israeli political objectives, it continues to militarize U.S. foreign policy and affects our relations not just with Iran, but with the larger community of nations. In practical terms, it keeps us from building stronger alliances to deal with the crisis in Syria (for example) and revives a unilateralist mindset that disregards international law. (continue reading on Unbound)
Banner photo by “jonasjonas,” the chess of calculated rhetoric
The first thing one encounters in discussing the war drumbeat targeting Iran is the one-sidedness of the debate. Glenn Greenwald of Salon gives a quick summary on this point, and James Wall, former Christian Century editor, describes the same reality. This suggests that the talk of war with Iran, though helpfully called, “loose talk,” by President Obama in his Sunday, March 4, speech to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is actually quite deliberate and orchestrated talk designed to create a mindset favoring war. And even if this talk is a repeated strategy to distract the U.S. public from continued settlements or other Israeli political objectives, it continues to militarize U.S. foreign policy and affects our relations not just with Iran, but with the larger community of nations. In practical terms, it keeps us from building stronger alliances to deal with the crisis in Syria (for example) and revives a unilateralist mindset that disregards international law. (continue reading on Unbound)
