{"id":27088,"date":"2017-10-21T12:35:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-21T17:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27088"},"modified":"2017-10-21T12:35:50","modified_gmt":"2017-10-21T17:35:50","slug":"an-attack-on-iran-or-north-korea-wouldnt-be-putting-america-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27088","title":{"rendered":"An Attack on Iran or North Korea Wouldn\u2019t Be Putting \u2018America First\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An<\/p>\n

An Attack on Iran or North Korea Wouldn\u2019t Be Putting \u2018America First\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n

Almost every day I am asked by someone what the likelihood is that we may soon be at war with Iran or North Korea, or conceivably both. As it\u2019s unlikely either of those countries will attack the United States since it would be suicidal, the question of war really means: are we going to attack them?<\/p>\n

There are those who say all the tub-thumping emanating from Washington is just bluster. For example,\u00a0Justin Raimondo of\u00a0Antiwar.com<\/em>\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0that President Donald Trump is just engaging in \u201crhetorical pyrotechnics and scor[ing] political points with certain [domestic] constituencies while maintaining the status quo: in short, he gets to engage in what is essentially a theatrical performance entirely unrelated to what is actually occurring on the ground. His enemies, mistaking rhetoric for reality, have risen to the bait.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hope Raimondo is right but I fear otherwise. Underlying his analysis is the all-too-factual reality that attacking either country would result in catastrophe. \u201cMillions would die, on both sides of the demilitarized zone,\u201d if we were to move first, he writes. \u201cFor this reason, the US \u2013 despite Trump\u2019s tweets \u2013 is not going to launch an attack on North Korea.\u201d Similar logic applies to Iran.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, if a prudent assessment of costs and benefits had guided American policy in recent years, none of our other\u00a0wars of choice<\/a>\u00a0would have taken place either \u2013 yet they did. The fact that foreseeable consequences may appear \u201cunthinkable\u201d to rational minds does not mean they are not regarded as quite thinkable to those making the decisions.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Attack on Iran or North Korea Wouldn\u2019t Be Putting \u2018America First\u2019 Almost every day I am asked by someone what the likelihood is that we may soon be at war with Iran or North Korea, or conceivably both. As it\u2019s unlikely either of those countries will attack the United States since it would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14764,16614,7844,441,2006,8203,827,862,865],"class_list":["post-27088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-america-first","tag-ames-george-jatras","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-north-korea","tag-strategic-culture-foundation","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27089,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27088\/revisions\/27089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}