Left Jabs

  “Peace talks” are usually plural — I can’t remember any war where there was just one, singular peace talk. Until now. One peace talk, one failure. The Vance delegation — is that an oxymoron? — picked up its toys and went home. They came back with nothing. Which is no more than what we deserve. I’m uncomfortable writing “we” in the context of some Trump-caused calamity, so please do not construe it as an endorsement of any word or deed being carried out in my country’s name. Take it to mean merely the “American side” of some international embarrassment. “We” is not me. I have no say in what “we” do. And the people who do have a say are idiots. At least I get to watch. We’ve arrived at the bargaining stage of the stupidest war in the nation’s history. How we got here is disgraceful. Whatever we come away with, however humiliating, serves us right. But whatever happens, it’s clear that we’re negotiating from weakness. We’re weak because we’ve been weakened ...

  He thought it would be over in three days. Swoop in, decapitate the government, install a new one, piece of cake. Instead it’s turned into an extended exercise in barbarity, targeting civilian populations, destroying infrastructure, and ruining multiple economies, with no apparent strategy or purpose beyond stroking a sociopath’s ego. Are we talking about Trump or Putin here? Iran or Ukraine? Hard to tell from just that paragraph. The similarities are as striking as the differences, the big difference being that Iran is just getting started, while Ukraine is a more mature catastrophe, four years in the making. Another difference is that Ukraine’s impact on the world economy after four years will prove to be a mere fraction of Iran’s after a few months. But Ukraine has been the harbinger of a new kind of war, which is now ready for prime time. Asymmetric war. Goliath-versus-David war. Total offense versus shrewd defense. Fertile ground for atrocities and war ...