Tag Archives: Iran

Hopefully, Trump Is the Queen of Hearts

By Robin Bates | Published: January 8, 2020

Is Trump like Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts? In the case of Iran, let’s hope so.

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Did Clancy Influence Iran Decision?

By Robin Bates | Published: January 7, 2020

Intelligence expert Malcolm Nance speculates that a Tom Clancy novel may have contributed toward the killing of the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

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To Avoid War, Look to The Iliad

By Robin Bates | Published: September 18, 2019

As we once again hear war’s drum beat, it’s good to return to “The Iliad” and its vision of peace: the Achilles-Priam truce.

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Gulliver in Trumpland

By Robin Bates | Published: June 24, 2019

Tuesday So now Donald Trump, after ramping up war talk with Iran, is magnanimously claiming to be a moderate by calling off his airstrike. Killing 150 Iranians, he tells us, would be a disproportionate response to the downing of an American drone. This time he’s right. Less excusable is that he got us into the […]

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Bolton’s Preventive War, Greek Style

By Robin Bates | Published: March 27, 2018

Incoming national security advisor John Bolton favors preventive war. Euripides describes an egregious act of prevention in the killing of Hector’s child in “The Trojan Women.”

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Has America Become a Lion for Peace?

By Robin Bates | Published: January 19, 2016

From having destabilized the world with the invasion of Iraq, America is becoming a force for peace with the Iranian peace accord. The turnaround reminds me of the evangelical lion in one of Scott Bates’s animal fables.

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Conservative Extremists as King Lear

By Robin Bates | Published: December 30, 2015

In another significant post that appeared this past year, I compared GOP extremists to King Lear–more interested in self-indulgent behavior than in responsible governance. The result is a divided country at war with itself.

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A Fantasy about U.S. Thirst for War

By Robin Bates | Published: April 7, 2015

Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” understands the thirst of those Americans that want to go to war with Iran.

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Lear’s Lesson: Dividing Leads to War

By Robin Bates | Published: March 12, 2015

The politics in “King Lear” are currently being played out in attempts to sabotage negotiations with Iran.

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