Fighting the New Cold War and the Old One
No, the new Cold War is not a reference to chilly relations between Putin's Russia and the U.S., although some have warned of a new cold war on that front. The new Cold War I have in mind is the one to which Seymour Hersh refers in a scary article in the current New Yorker . Hersh explains that the saber-rattling at Iran is part of a larger Bush administration policy to side with the Sunnis against an emerging "Shiite crescent" in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon in a Middle Eastern cold war. Working behind the scenes with the Saudis, Hersh's sources say, the administration has been seeking to counter the spread of Iranian influence. The article is scary because it notes that many of the foot soldiers in the confrontation with the Shiites are al Qaeda or members of similar groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and that these people hate Americans (whom they regard as crusading infidels) even more than they hate Shiites (whom they regard as apostates). With friends like t...