On page 12 of the current Newsweek (July 2-July 9, 2007) is a short piece titled Iran: Broken War Drums? Framed by comments by Joe Lieberman and associates is this sentence:

Another [intelligence] official said U.S. government experts were also concerned that any American cross-border raid into Iran might produce an unintended escalation of violence between the United States and Tehran. [emphasis decidedly mine.]

I'm trying to imagine a situation where border incursions by one country into another would not produce "escalation of violence." Unintended? I know of quite a few historic situations where one country deliberately provoked another country to violence as an excuse to invade.

The more I read that sentence the more I'm curious about the editorial choices behind it. And, yes, I understand the concept that tensions and conflict between countries can get so bad war is, for practical purposes, inevitable. But this sentence embodies an attitude, a throwback to Cold War brinksmanship. It assumes that major nation-state players/actors are the sole considerations for such jockeying for position. That really isn't true for many situations.

Perhaps my naïveté is showing through.

Labels: Iran, politics, war