Democracy clinging to a missile. It is a simplified but powerful image of the reasoning affecting the world in these hours.
The primary object is the ongoing war between Israel and Iran, with the former attacking nuclear sites and the latter responding with a shower of rockets.
There are already 1,000 civilian casualties and a huge number of wounded adding up each other’s provisional budgets. These operations are never aseptic no matter how much advanced military technology allows for greater precision on the one hand and more ‘protection on the other.
See the images from below of the gutted houses for us to come out of the nightly illusion of video game flashes. Action – reaction , once again the spiral of violence works this way in the Middle East and once again there are fears of so-called escalation, that is, the involvement of other regional powers first and then world powers.
In short, the frightening and overly evoked (lately) amrageddon, verbally the third planetary conflict, the nuclear one, the ultimate one for homo sapiens.
But let us avoid joining the chorus of doom and keep the analytical bar straight. ‘America for now is at the window, the nuclear agreements with Tehran were to be signed these days, and Trump proposing as mediator none other than Putin, with immediate reaction of annoyance from all diplomacy.
A dictator, an ayatollah and a leader yes of a democratic country (Israel) but very very aggressive. Not an encouraging picture.
Netanyahu argues that his country acted to defend first and foremost itself (an Islamic regime that wants the end of the Jewish state and equips itself with the atomic bomb …) but also the world.
Khamenei, the Iranian leader, is hiding in a bunker, his certain leadership has been killed or is on the run, the regime is about to collapse. A push from the civilian population and support from the West and it’s done…so claims the leadership in Tel Aviv.
But history tells us that it is never that simple. Every time democracy has been exported by force it has been a tragedy, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to stay with the examples of the last decades.
And once again politics and public opinion in Western democracies are divided, especially in Europe. With dialectical distinctions and strokes of the foil that produce paradoxical effects: on formal point of principle, regimes are defended even as supporting Israel’s growing defensive-offensive aggression becomes increasingly complicated.
The skein is entangled and we all, I repeat we all, are at risk not only in terms of security but also in terms of energy and the international mobility of goods. An unparalleled economic crisis. So much for tariffs…
The article The Democracy Missile comes from TheNewyorker.
