In politics as in life we might say that there are big picture scenarios and little picture scenarios...
Or general questions and particular questions; long-term visions and short-term details; forests and trees.
The forest I want write about here is a cluster of related themes: America's reflexive imperial machinery, the now bankrupt neocon ideology that supports it, what we can do to change it, and our lack of any long-term plan to extract ourselves from the middle east and wean ourselves from our addiction to fossil feuls.
The trees in all this are the Iraq war (I am convinced the Iraq war is a symptom and not the disease, to mix another metaphor), the sabre-rattling about Iran, etc.
Jump below the fold to see where this is leading....
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