In Ukraine – as in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere – the Empire’s forces are in disarray. The loss of Crimea, and setbacks in Syria, are merely the latest of many debacles. The cause of this ongoing disaster: A series of self-inflicted wounds.

The worst wounds have been self-inflicted by the Empire’s lunatic fringe: the Israel-centric neoconservatives. This group, which includes both Jewish chauvinists and Christian armageddonites, is burdened by fanatical devotion to an impossible project: The maintenance of a sustainable “Jewish state” in Occupied Palestine.

Irrational attachment to Israel has lured the Empire into a series of disastrous attacks on Muslim-majority states. In 2008, economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated that the war on Iraq alone had cost the US more than $3 trillion. Since then, he has repeatedly revised that estimate upward. Throw in Afghanistan and other theaters of the anti-Muslim pro-Zionist crusade, and we are in the double-digit trillions.

Bottom line: The Zio-con 9/11 wars have crashed the US and world economies.

In a 2010 Washington Post article, Stiglitz wrote: “It seems clear that without this war, not only would America’s standing in the world be higher, our economy would be stronger. The question today is: Can we learn from this costly mistake?”

Alas, the answer is no. Though Obama has thus far resisted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s orders to attack Iran, the US is still doing the bidding of the Zionist bankster oligarchs who are the real power behind the Western throne. And those oligarchs – or at least the hawkish among them – are still pushing for world war.

The Western bankster oligarchs love war because it forces governments to borrow gigantic sums of money at compound interest, condemning whole nations to perpetual debt slavery. The oligarch hawks and their front man Netanyahu, frustrated by US resistance to attacking Iran, are trying to start World War III in less direct fashion. They overthrew the legitimate government of Ukraine in a fascist coup d’état in order to ratchet up tensions between the US and Russia. Now, with the great powers on hair-trigger alert, Netanyahu, who has spent $3 billion preparing a go-it-alone plan to attack Iran, can light the fuse of World War III any time he chooses.

There are indications that Netanyahu may light that fuse sooner rather than later – maybe even this week. On March 23rd, Reuters reported:

“Israeli diplomats launched an unprecedented strike on Sunday, forcing the complete closure of embassies around the world as they escalated a dispute over pay, officials said.”

Now that Israel’s diplomatic facilities are closed, will the Israeli military also “launch an unprecedented strike”?

Barbara Honegger, a former presidential advisor and Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the US Naval Postgraduate School, believes the Israeli diplomatic strike is just a cover story: “Because of the recall of Israel’s Embassy and Consulate personnel worldwide under the guise of a wage strike – assuming this Reuters story is true – I believe Israel is about to go to war on Syria and Iran, which would bring in Russia, the U.S. and NATO. The Malaysia Airlines ‘search’ is probably a cover for moving naval and air force military assets into place…”….more here