“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Many in the United States now feel that our country looks the fool before the rest of the world. The mildest epithet being applied to us in the Middle East is “stupid.” A few of our European allies, however, have expressed concern and sympathy. Our President’s main challengers for his office haven’t publicly criticized him, but neither have they defended him from foreign and domestic censure—and today our Secretary of State resigned in protest of the rescue mission. Our government is supposed to have begun preparing for the rescue shortly after the hostages were seized more than five months ago. All details of the failed attempt may not be released for months, or even years, but already critics are questioning whether the excessive secrecy surrounding the operation led to basic errors in planning and judgment, as well as poor anticipation of the mechanical factors involved.

Historically, the animosity between Iran (which until 1935 was called Persia) and Iraq goes back to at least the seventh century, when Arabic conquests brought Islam to the area. A major difference between the two countries is that Iran is Indo-European, and Iraq is Arab. Mohammed, the founder of the Moslem religion, died in 632; conflicts over his successor led to an overall division of the religion into the Shiite and Sunni branches (although this is a simplification). But this great split is also a factor in the current challenges being explored by the two nations: Iran is ruled by Shiite Moslems, Iraq by the Sunni.

From our viewpoint, it’s almost as though our country has become transfixed by its involvements in the Middle East. I even think that the dust storms the American helicopters had to struggle through to reach Desert One were not only symbols but conscious manifestations of our challenges there. The failure of our rescue mission represents another learning step as we grapple with some of the “modern” convolutions of religious and secular forces. Actually, the proliferations of consciousness on our planet are seamless: In those terms, the overall challenges are ancient indeed.