On February 20, at the first meeting of his ironically named Board of Peace, president Donald Trump said that the world will find out "over the next, probably, 10 days" whether the U.S. would take military action against Iran. It only took eight. Our involvement in the Middle East, however, stretches back decades, through multiple presidencies, all of which have set one violent precedent after another. Esquire political columnist Charles P. Pierce lays out that history plainly, while also explaining how this time is different. Read his thoughts below. – Chris Hatler, deputy editor |
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We elected, twice, a man with no conscience, no ethics, no empathy, and no concept of how to wield power. |
Damn all of them. GODdamn all of them. Goddamn Ike and Churchill, and the Dulles brothers, and all the smart boys in the CIA, with their Operation Ajax, and goddamn all the plutocrats of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and goddamn anyone else involved in the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, which got this whole ball rolling in the first place. Goddamn the Pahlavi family, for its decades of savagery and thievery, and the officers of SAVAK, the Pahlavis' fearsome torture and murder squads who finally went too far. Goddamn Ronald Reagan and his underlings for meddling in the incredibly sanguinary Iran-Iraq War, essentially arming both sides in a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Goddamn the Congress that didn't have the balls to impeach the president over this fiasco, and all the politicians who stonewalled special counsel Lawrence Walsh's investigation and ran out his clock for him. Goddamn Bill Clinton for his too-clever-by-half-temporizing "dual containment" policy and for the sanctions that hurt ordinary Iranians. Goddamn all the Congresses, and all the members of those Congresses, who let their constitutional war powers bleed steadily away to the executive branch, and goddamn all the workarounds that the Congresses have concocted to avoid doing their constitutional duties—UN Resolutions, Gulf of Tonkin Resolutions, Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, even the War Powers Act. And goddamn the Congresses that refused even to assert themselves in defense of these extra-constitutional gimcracks, thereby opening the door one day to a half-mad president and his band of feckless thugs to launch a war of choice without even the pretense of a notification or much of a plan beyond telling the Iranian people to rise up. "Rise against your government, and we'll have your backs!" |
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The limited, three-shoe collection dropped at midnight this morning, March 2, on thombrowne.com. The gray colorway, obviously the most "Thom Browne" of the three, is pretty much sold out. The resellers have already listed it on StockX for $1,000. The black, my favorite, screams "collab" the least, though the signature Thom Brown red, white, and blue means it'll be identifiable to fans. The white, which releases March 23, would look gorgeous in an all-white tennis club outfit—Thom Browne at its most off-duty. I think I'm into these. Few fashion brands (even fewer maisons) have the aesthetic language required to make a sneaker like the Gel-Kayano 14, which is already the darling of the silvery retro runner trend we've talked about for years, feel immediately interesting—at least interesting enough to put the American Express down. But Thom Browne is the one company, the one designer, I trust to do it.
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There was a brotherhood between the late James Van Der Beek and Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson. Once upon a time, they even seriously considered revisiting that world. Time got away from them, though. "I've always been resistant to Dawson's Creek," Williamson says. "I always felt like, 'Well, we did that. We finished it.' In the last episode, we jumped five years. We went to the future. The last episode of that show was the remake. So I feel very okay with that. And I don't feel the need to go back to that world, as much as I love them and would love to." That possibility closed forever with Van Der Beek's passing. "James and I talked about rebooting Dawson's Creek several times," he reveals. "He wanted to do it. And in fact, there was a moment where he was going to write it—and he had a really great idea for it. He had a beautiful plan. Then I think he got on a show and everybody got busy. It never happened. But there was a lot of talk about it." |
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