Was it being constantly invaded? Stalinist terror? The obscene arms race? Plain old ennui? 

More from Great big book of horrible things (2012)

At #39 (#65 US civil war was a picnic compared to this), Cambodia in 1975 was a bombed-out US-controlled dictatorship. ‘Brother Number One’, Pol Pot was a demented nationalist, devotee of Mao’s cultural revolution, which he succeeded in duplicating to a fault. I.e., millions dead, mass starvation and a megalomaniac Kampuchea uber alles, eradicating not only ‘capitalist roaders’ but all minorities, books, whatever. He took special delight in torturing and killing native Vietnamese, a tiny minority mostly on the border in contested areas. Vietnam took note, and with the Americans finally out of their hair, they took the bait when Cambodians staged border raids. Classic Bismarck.

Reading The great big book of horrible things (2012), I came to the American civil war. Bloody, but well down the list at 65. It was in the works for at least a decade and finally caught fire. Brother fighting brother over a defense of the equality of all vs white nationalism. Messy and cruel, in the end a war of attrition, with the industrial engine flattening the enemy.  

The Union under Lincoln was initially spurned by Britain and France. Schadenfreude for the British and Napoleonic fantasies for the French. The British aristocracy was pro-south but the empire’s merchant rulers wisely didn’t take sides openly. As the north appeared likely to win, the south was abandoned. Literally, as it never really recovered, even today, still mired in its past.

There is a way out of the Israel-Palestine impasse. Really, the only way out. And it has been staring us in the face since the time when Zionism in its present form was taking shape, from 1900 to 1940. This was Herzl's intent. His Altneuland (The Old New Land, 1902), is a vision of what he hoped would be accomplished by 1923.

Theodore Herzl did not foresee any implacable conflict between Jews and Arabs.

My dear friend (and translator of Canada Israel Nexus into Persian) Reza Montazami, has asked me to post his assessment of Iran-US relations, which he sees as Iran-US-Israel relations. 

*My country and New Horizon are fighting for the American people against the most dangerous threat and enemy to the American and Iranian peoples. We need to ask ourselves, why do patriotic Americans, people in the intelligence, security, and military communities, and political leaders allow American military personnel to be killed or humiliated to serve Israel's interests?

In the spirit of Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal to solve the problem of the Irish famine, the ex-diplomatic offers conditions for a fair war between US-Israel and Iran.