Best of the Week
A longer than usual list of recommendations for your summer weekend...
My colleague Paul Grenier of The Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy writes in a new essay titled ‘Iran and the Permanent War Machine: The Modern State as Organized Crime’…
Immanuel Kant, in his articles of peace, famously declared the impermissibility, indeed, the irrationality of any state engaging in “such modes of hostility as would make mutual confidence impossible in a subsequent state of peace.” Among such “modes of hostility,” according to Kant is “making use of treachery.” And yet what has Trump's behavior been other than a combination of lying and treachery?
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The medical journal The Lancet notes that,
Every day, on average, 35 children are killed in Gaza, amounting to a total of at least 18, 000 children killed in this conflict. Pre-teen children are being admitted with gunshot wounds. Children are dying of chronic malnutrition and those who survive might never fully recover. Gaza is also home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history. Beyond physical injuries, the psychological trauma of seeing their houses being destroyed and families being killed will leave permanent scars. The legacy of such destruction will be felt for generations to come.
For too long, the Israeli Government has acted with impunity.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01082-7/fulltext
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The New York Review of Books has an illuminating exchange titled ‘The Shame of Israeli Medicine’….
There are now between 3,105 and 4,050 child amputees in Gaza—the largest such cohort in modern history. For eighteen months the IMA chose to remain silent as the Israeli air force and infantry systematically decimated the medical system in Gaza, killing 1,400 health care workers, with all of the multiplication of harm that such attacks produce.
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/06/14/the-shame-of-israeli-medicine-an-exchange/
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Polls show no support for war with Iran:
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/america-last-no-us-demographic-supports-war-on-iran/
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New York Magazine has a devastating and very entertaining profile of Pete Hegseth,
“Pete is playing secretary,” a source says. “He’s not being secretary.” In crisis — an unplanned evacuation, Israel bombing Iran, China moving on Taiwan — there will be no one with experience to lead. “For any sustained operations, we’re screwed. There’s nobody in the SecDef’s office at this point that has any … they’re not heavyweights. They don’t have the sophistication. They don’t have the experience.” One source described a longtime Pentagon employee discussing the lack of readiness in the office, “close to tears,” saying “the department is so fucked.”
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Former CIA official and National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia Paul Pillar notes that,
The nuclear dimension of regional instability also must be considered. To the extent Israel’s war is aimed at the ability of Iran to construct a nuclear weapon, the Israeli goal is not to keep nuclear weapons out of the Middle East but rather to maintain Israel’s own regional nuclear monopoly.
That monopoly is part of the background to the impunity with which Israel has become the most destructive actor in the Middle East, attacking more nations with its armed forces than any other state in the region.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-iran-war-2672402953/