In 54 BC, Marcus Licinius Crassus, a rich, ambitious Roman businessman, was named governor of the wealthy province of Syria.
Crassus had been sharing power in Rome with Pompey and Julius Caesar. Call him the Donald Trump of his day.
Crassus decided to invade neighbouring Parthia, which is today Turkiye and Iran.
At the battle of Carrhae, retreating Persian horse archers loosed arrows over the back of their horses, giving us the literary term for a parting shot, “Parthian shaft”.
The moribund Biden administration lost its own Parthian shaft this week by having Ukraine fire US-supplied ATACMS tactical missiles with the help of US military technicians.
A handful of British Storm Shadow and French Scalp air-launched missiles were also fired at Russia.
This was clearly an act of war between nuclear powers.
Russia responded by launching one of its new hypersonic missiles with multiple warheads at Dnipro, Ukraine.
The new Russian medium-range missile carried conventional, not nuclear, warheads.
But the message was loud and clear: all of Western Europe was in range.
One must ask, what was the lame-duck Biden administration doing?
Clearly, it was trying to provoke an even larger war with Russia.
The outgoing administration is still filled with fanatical Russia-haters.
In fact, the Pentagon, CIA, NSA and the rest of America’s 18 national security agencies were packed with dunderheads who thought we were still fighting the Cold War and yearned to break up Russia into little Balkanised mini-states such as what happened to Yugoslavia.
So, the low IQ Biden administration has managed to get itself into a real, unwinnable war in Ukraine and the genocidal disaster in Gaza that also threatens to drag the US into war with Iran (former Parthia) while a huge conflict with China looms just over the geopolitical horizon.
Meanwhile, Israel’s extreme right-wing government of fanatical settlers and nouveau rightists seems to be acquiring most of the levers of power in the US.
And this is before the uber-Israel-first Trump & Co. enters office.
Fools should not be allowed to play with matches.
Biden’s foolish neocons can still cause a lot of mayhem before January 20.
Trump keeps vowing to uproot Washington’s deep-seated neocon “secret government” that is the real power behind the scenes.
But he is really part of this cabal and seems to share its views.
Perhaps Trump will keep his word and begin to break the war party’s grip on power before they manage to ignite a nuclear war with Russia.
Eric S. Margolis is a syndicated columnist. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
