Quote of the Day

[T]he specter of war with Iran bears both hallmarks of terrible military adventures: Washington is again overestimating Iran’s bellicose intent and underestimating its capacity to defend itself. Make no mistake: war in the Persian Gulf will bloody, indecisive, and nearly impossible to disengage from. It’d be Iraq War 2.0, only worse – since Iran is bigger, more mountainous, and has a more nationalistic population than even Iraq.

. . . It is war that the unelected hyper-hawks like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo want, and, with an apathetic citizenry, uniformed Congress, and pliable president, it is war they may just get. Such a fight would be bloody, difficult, costly, and hard to end. It would shatter any remnants of regional stability and only serve to empower the two hidden hands behind this bellicosity – Saudi Arabia and Israel. To invade and/or attack Iran would, once and for all, spell the end of any fiction of the U.S. remaining a representative republic governed by the popular will and international norms. Instead it’d be exposed for what it has long been becoming – a rogue, hegemonic empire bent on power and destruction.

– Major Danny Sjursen
Excerpted from “War With Iran Is America's Endgame”
AntiWar via TruthDig
May 15, 2019

Related Off-site Links:
John Bolton Is Doing Everything He Can to Get the U.S. Into a New War – Paul R. Pillar (Business Insider, May 8, 2019).
Trump Says He'd Send More Than 120,000 Troops to Fight Iran – Justin Sink (Bloomberg via Fortune, May 14, 2019).
White House Reviews Military Plans Against Iran, in Echoes of Iraq War – The New York Times (May 14, 2019).
Is John Bolton the Most Dangerous Man in the World? – Ben Armbruster (The Guardian, May 16, 2019).
Pompeo Says U.S. Doesn't Want War with Iran But Warns of "Swift" Response If Provoked – Nicole Gaouette, Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne (CNN, May 10, 2019).
Medea Benjamin: We Need to Build Up the Anti-War Movement to Oppose War Against Iran – Democracy Now! (May 15, 2019).
We Have Spent $32 Million Per Hour on War Since 2001 – Stephanie Savell (Common Dreams, March 21, 2018).

UPDATES: Neocons Won’t Stop Until They Get Their War With Iran – Sonali Kolhatkar (Common Dreams, May 17, 2018).
Amid Murky Intel, Experts Say Time to Be Clear: Threat of War With Iran "Solely and Unequivocally" Trump's Fault – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, May 17, 2019).
Four Simple Steps the U.S. Media Could Take to Prevent a Trump War With Iran – Mehdi Hasan (The Intercept, May 17, 2019).
Iran and the Coalition of the Weird – Mike Lofgren (Common Dreams, May 18, 2019).
War With Iran Would Be a Murderous Disaster – Noah Kulwin (Jacobin, May 18, 2019).
Media Setting Up Iran as New “Threat” That Must Be Confronted – Janine Jackson (FAIR, May 19, 2019).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The War Racket
• Quest of the Day – May 15, 2019
• Resisting the Hand of the Empire
• Quote of the Day – March 20, 2018
• Making the Connections
• Saying "No" to Endless U.S. Wars
• The Tenth Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq
• A Letter to "Dear Abby" re. Responding to 9/11

Image: Kristen Solberg.