Iran Delenda Est
The American obsession with war against Iran
This one’s a little more current-eventsy than what I usually post here. I’m thinking of doing more writing like this here, if people enjoy it… So tell me in the comments whether you want more pieces like this!
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It was probably the most significant example of fig-based political persuasion in history.
When a Roman politician named Cato visited northern Africa to help settle a dispute between Numidia, which controlled much of what’s now Algeria and Libya, and Rome’s old enemy Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia, he expected to find Carthage weak and poor. After all, the Romans had defeated Carthage in a long war about 50 years before, ending their rivalry for dominance in the Mediterranean. Cato had served in this war as a young man.
But when Cato arrived in Africa, he did not find the poor, defeated city he expected. The historian Plutarch writes that Carthage was “teeming with vigorous fighting men, overflowi…
