“US
at odds with allies as toll mounts” is one of the leading stories today.

Michael
Costello concludes, also in the Oz: “It’s a harsh truth, but
a truth nevertheless. Misjudgments by the Palestinian side, and, for a while,
hubris from the Israeli side about keeping most of the occupied territories
meant that even if a deal was possible, it wasn’t reached. The Palestinian side
is now in the grip of Islamic fundamentalists who will never accept
Israel’s existence.
Israel seems likely to face more
decades of war at various levels. The reality is that Israel’s
implacable enemies have declared themselves to be our implacable enemies too.
So let’s stop
fooling ourselves with talk of diplomatic solutions of many of these problems
and accept we are all in for a long struggle.”

Henry’s own Sir Wellington
Boot recently shared a similar deeply pessimistic conclusion: “So now the stage is
set for a long haul war. All parties have aims which, upon gaining, would
constitute for them a tactical victory. It is only tactical victories that are
available in the Middle East and each party is ready, willing and able to pay
the price in blood and treasure to gain such … 25 years of developments
in the Middle East are now ready to be adjudicated in the historical and
traditional Middle Eastern manner… WAR.”

Henry has reported
a consistent set of stories to the effect that the US is seriously considering a pre-emptive attack
on Iran, designed to cripple its
nascent/suspected nuclear arms capability.

Sir Wellington
has written:
“Henry … With all this unhappiness in Lebanon and Israel
I thought it would be useful to let your bizoid readers know that their near
future business plans, based on moving across sunlit uplands, are worthless. The
article I offer to you is totally convincing and puts us all back to July
1914 … something evil this way comes”.

Henry fervently
hopes this, and the story it refers to, is overstated. But if it is not, the
world is on the brink of what one close friend called a “descent into
chaos”.

More reading at
Henry Thornton.