Essays in Idleness

One of the most cheerful accomplishments of the precision bombing of Iran, is the demolition of the front gate of the Evin Prison for political inmates. This has been just one of the “showier” acts of the blesséd IAF campaign. It has destroyed so many of the Ayatollahs’ brutal institutions, while just doing modest damage to those “inside,” who are left only to watch and applaud.

For 46 years the Persian and other peoples imprisoned within the Iranian totalitarian regime have been not only tortured and murdered, but forced to look daily upon the symbols of Shia oppression. But with control over the Persian-turquoise skies, and a seemingly endless supply of efficient, Western-made airborne munitions, the Israelis have the leisure to “edit” the official landscape, and replace enemy fixtures with ruin. As Donald Trump instructed the subjects of our intrusions, “MIGA! Make Iran Great Again.”

“Regime change” was not the best idea, as the Americans learnt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, &c. Like other aspects of “democracy” it has never been adequately thought through. It is, and will always be, too much trouble, and it never works. As I wrote, when as a daily journalist I was recommending the invasion of Iraq, the intention ought to be purely destructive, both going in and coming out. (In the manner of pagan Rome, as my colleague John Robson then suggested: in through Kuwait, and out perhaps a few weeks later through the wreckage of Syria and Lebanon.) It is for the surviving natives to decide what comes next. And if, by chance, they make another poor decision, you can always invade them again.

Study drama. Read Aristotle on the importance of poetic unities.