The boy who cried war

Among the fables of the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop is that of a young shepherd who repeatedly raises false alarms about a looming wolf with nearby villagers; the crux comes when a real wolf later appears but nobody believes the boy’s cries before it is too late. Now, replace “young shepherd” with “the media, Middle East experts and informed sources”, then replace “wolf” with “war with Iran”, and this tale from antiquity is suddenly spun into contemporary non-fiction. In the summer of 2007, I wrote a commentary for these pages describing the then-resounding rumors of an impending war with Iran. I could easily submit the same piece again for publication today, changing just a fact or two and updating the latest political rhetoric. It was actually two years before, in 2005, that the current wave of media reports warning of imminent war with Iran began to deluge my email inbox.