1) Kill Decision, by Daniel Suarez. Over the months Atlantic writers have considered how much less attractive military-drone technology will be from the American perspective, when it is no longer a U.S. monopoly. See installments by Steve Clemons, Robert Wright, and me, including allusions to David Ignatius's novel Bloodmoney.In Ignatius's book, drones were an incidental motivating factor. In Daniel Suarez's Kill Decision, they are the center of the action. Timely, cautionary -- and of course very interesting.
2) The Party Is Over, by Mike Lofgren.
Lofgren is a long-time Congressional staff member, recently retired, whom I have quoted frequently in this space. His new book, which came out just last week, is an expansion of the jeremiad from him that I discussed last year. For a gloss on his topic and appropriately sympathetic book review, see this essay by my friend (and also Lofgren's) Chuck Spinney in Counterpunch. Also this essay by Kelley Vlahos in The American Conservative.
3) "7 Reasons Why Israel Should Not Attack Iran's Nuclear Facilities," by the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, over the weekend on our site. I have one percent as many contacts in Israel as Jeff Goldberg does, but even I have started getting messages from friends there saying that the bomb-Iran drumbeat is reaching new intensity.
From the start, the main problem I have had believing that the Netanyahu team could be serious about these threats is that a bombing attack on Iran would be so recklessly self-defeating, above all for Israel. Goldberg's item lays out the self-defeating aspects systematically and convincingly. Let's hope they are convincing to the audience that matters within the Israeli government.
Stay tuned for Part II, with a China theme, this evening (or when I get to it).
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