US war insanity

By Azmi Bishara
Al-Ahram Weekly

"......Few countries, including Israel, go on the warpath without offering assorted justifications. The difference in this case is that some people in this part of the world are chorusing America's justifications for going to war against Iran. I imagine that, in part, this echoing of America's position has its origins in a curious argument. It holds that America is a crazy country and that its president is off his rocker, so other governments would be wise simply to do as he says because otherwise their leaders will be held responsible for the catastrophes that descend on their countries. Suddenly, all those governments in the world that are normally accused of being irrational are expected to be more rational than the world's sole superpower and the man who leads it. But if American foreign policy is really that irrational surely this must be a solid enough reason to oppose it, for the only service the above-mentioned argument performs is to aid and abet a form of international blackmail.

Opposing the war, as noted above, requires sustained action. This is the time not for futile arguments but for building a pro-peace coalition or an anti-war movement, which has taken shape elsewhere in the world but not in this region yet."