Billmon: The Spiral Conflict

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

William Butler Yeats
The Second Coming
1921

William Beeman, a professor of Middle East studies at Brown University, published an interesting piece on the Iran showdown last week. It covers some of the same ground as my two Flight Forward posts, but gets to the punch line a lot quicker:

Iran and U.S. Locked Into Spiral Conflict

Indeed, the danger in this situation could be dismissed if there were other leaders in power. However, in both nations the leadership needs this conflict. President Bush and the Republican party face defeat in November without an issue to galvanize the voting public behind their assertion that they are best able to protect the United States from attack — the only point on which they have outscored Democrats in recent polls. President Ahmadinejad also needs public support for his domestic political agenda — an agenda that is paradoxically opposed by a large number of the ruling clerics in Iran. Every time he makes a defiant assertion against the United States, the public rallies behind him.