The fine print

Read False Dawn
Obama's election doesn't mean peace is breaking out all over – far from it

"We didn't build the biggest embassy in diplomatic history just to leave it to become a Museum of American Atrocities."

...

"This "regional" approach championed by Obama is a technocratic euphemism for yet more – and bigger – U.S. military interventions throughout the Middle East. The preparations for an Afghan "surge" have been long in the making, and in this arena Obama will take up where Bush left off, and then some."

...

"Some kind of military operation into Pakistan is a virtual certainty, the only question being one of scale: will it be a "surgical" strike, or a large-scale Iraq-style invasion? In any case, the former is a plausible prelude to the latter."

And The myth of Israel's strategic genius

"In the wake of September 11, neoconservatives in the United States, who had been pushing for war against Iraq since early 1998, helped convince President Bush to attack Iraq as part of a larger strategy of "regional transformation." Israeli officials were initially opposed to this scheme because they wanted Washington to go after Iran instead, but once they understood that Iran and Syria were next on the administration's hit list they backed the plan enthusiastically. Indeed, prominent Israelis like Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres helped sell the war in the United States, while Prime Minister Sharon and his chief aides put pressure on Washington to make sure that Bush didn’t lose his nerve and leave Saddam standing. The result? A costly quagmire for the United States and a dramatic improvement in Iran's strategic position."


Bill