Sorry for the long delay in putting up a new post. Various events from the non-blogging world intruded – and, to complicate matters further, I got caught up in reading Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West. Before I knew it, three months had passed, and now, as I look up from my reading and take in the daily news, I can see some of what Mr. Spengler had in mind! Decline indeed! The United States government has issued bombing warnings once again, and Iraq once again finds itself in the crosshairs. A group of “insurgents” (see below) have “taken” (a term that seems to mean, have “gained military control of”) a number of large cities in northern Iraq and have, as of this writing, come fairly close to Baghdad.

Predictably enough, a group of ex-Bushites and other Republicans have pinned the blame on Mr. Obama, the most readily-available Democratic donkey, claiming that things have gone awry in Iraq because of the man’s unwise policies there. Though I hold no brief for Obama and his policies, the vast majority of which seem myopic and ill-considered, if we want to bring to the surface what has “gone wrong” in Iraq, we surely have to look back at least to 2003, and probably to the many years that the United States considered Saddam Hussein its best ally in the Middle East, and perhaps even to the years following the first world war, when the so-called European powers, perhaps most notably Britain but with the United States paying close attention, acted with a myopia that even Obama and the Republicans would have difficulty matching. One would think that the Republicans, elephants all, could bring at least some of those events back to mind.

Can we gain any insight by applying astrology to the current situation? Let’s see how far we get before Obama, Kerry, and the rest decide to take yet one more ill-considered action.

Consider the following three horoscopes: one, which my readers have seen before, for the United States; one for Iraq; and even one for Saddam Hussein, who once thought himself a good friend of Daddy Bush and a disconnected chap named Reagan. Note, in particular, the planets that cluster in the final degrees of Capricorn and Cancer: the Pluto-Mercury opposition for the United States; the Pluto-Saturn opposition for Iraq; the Jupiter-Pluto opposition for Mr. Hussein. Small wonder that the two countries have had such an underhanded and oppositional relationship over the years; small wonder, too, that the nations have gotten so caught up in each other’s projections.

Note some other aspects, too: Iraq’s Sun-Mercury conjunction in Libra conjoining the U.S. Saturn and square the U.S. Sun, with Iraq’s Sun also square the U.S. Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer: Iraq’s Uranus joining the picture, making a t-square of Iraq’s Saturn-Pluto opposition and therefore aspecting the United States’ opposition, squaring both Pluto and Mercury and making challenging aspect (though with a wider orb of aspect) to the U.S. Sun-Saturn square as well. None of these aspects promise harmony or love! It would take us too far afield to go through all of the transiting, directed, and  progressed aspects in play during the two major conflicts between the two nations, so let the following show some of the importance of some of the afflictive aspects in the U.S. horoscope. When the United States attacked Iraq back on 17 January 1991, Saturn had reached 27+ Capricorn, affecting all the planets in the aforementioned oppositions; further, a solar eclipse took place on 15 January 1991 at 25+ Capricorn, activating the same aspects. Further still, Neptune, a planet associated with Neptune (and, in the U.S. horoscope, closely connected with military ventures) at 14+ Capricorn squared the U.S. Saturn and opposed the U.S. Sun, while Uranus at 10+ Capricorn would shortly make the same aspects. Finally, Mars, retrograde during the entire troop buildup of 1990, turned direct at 27+ Taurus on 1 January, closely squaring the United States Moon. Not only did the superimposed oppositions come into play, via Saturn and the eclipse, but most of the problematic aspects in the U.S. horoscope did likewise. As noted, we can’t look at all of those factors in one blog, but we can make a start. As I have said in other blog entries as well as various articles (and in a section of my forthcoming book) that the United States’ Mercury-Pluto opposition symbolizes the U.S. tendency to play the role of Mercury in Cancer and to project onto other nations or leaders the role of Pluto in Capricorn. We can trace the pattern throughout the history of this country, with Native Americans serving early on as the hook for the projection, followed by Africans, then by Mexicans, later by the Soviet Union, Hussein, Iraq, and all sorts of “terrorists.” The terminology used by the government and the plutocratic press (Mercury-Pluto) to describe these groups have remained remarkably consistent.

Meanwhile, with its Saturn-Pluto opposition, Iraq has tended to play the role of Saturn (authority based tradition) and to project Pluto onto others, in this case the United States, a country that serves nicely as a hook as it sits on mountains of plutonium. So as the U.S. projects its Pluto onto Iraq, Iraq projects its Pluto onto the United States. No matter how many projectiles you spit forth, you can’t win a war against your own projections. BTW: The astrological principle in play here has to do with oppositions: when you see an opposition in a natal horoscope of a nation (or a person, though then some other factors demand consideration), expect the nation to play the role of the planet closest to the sun and to project onto others – enemies, most probably – the role of the planet farthest from the sun.

As I have also pointed out in other places, the United States’ seventh house Mars, opposing the ascendant and in the house symbolizing projections onto others, symbolizes the country’s tendency to see other nations or groups (7^th) as aggressors (Mars), another pattern we can trace quite easily through the historical record. The square from Mars to Neptune suggests, at the same time, the use of a deceptive (Neptune) national ideology (9^th house) as an excuse for wars (Mars) blamed on others (7^th). As an example of a deceptive ideology, consider Manifest Destiny; as an example of outright deception, consider the Gulf of Tonkin, the events leading up to the invasion of Mexico (1846), or the actions of the Bushites in 2003. As projection, seen through the eyes of the one doing the projecting (the U.S.) Mars-Neptune will appear either as purportedly deceptive enemies (and once you decide to see them as “enemies,” you shouldn’t feel surprised if you find deception), or as open enemies (7^th) on the attack (Mars) driven on by delusions (Neptune). When acknowledged as part of the nation itself, Mars-Neptune appears as the series of deceptions that have characterized U.S. military ventures from the beginning.

The most recent set of “insurgents” in Iraq surged onto the front pages of the mainstream media (MSM) just as transiting Mars conjoined Iraq’s Sun and closed in on a conjunction to the U.S. Saturn and a square to the U.S. Sun. The conjunction to Saturn brought threats of bombing from the U.S. that have slightly died down as Mars has passed away from that aspect. However, in passing away from the Sun-Saturn aspect, it approaches a square to the U.S. Mercury-Pluto opposition and the Iraq Saturn-Pluto opposition; it will also oppose Iraq’s Uranus at 21 Aries, a fine symbol for Iraq’s “insurgents,” the aspect suggesting U.S. aggression (Mars) opposing revolutionary forces (Uranus) in Iraq.

Iraq’s Saturn-Pluto opposition suggests a tense relationship between authority systems (Saturn) and underworld connections (Pluto). The U.S. has helped to provide the latter – has, we might say, served nicely as a hook for Iraq’s Pluto. With the U.S. Pluto directly on Iraq’s Saturn, we should not feel surprised if U.S. plutocrats control the government hierarchies (Saturn) in Iraq, the situation for many decades, as we know. However, Iraq’s t-square to Uranus strongly suggests that some elements in Iraq, represented by Uranus, will rebel against such control, as seems the case here, particularly when we consider the events leading up to the current situation. As Ross Caputi tells us (http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/unthinkable-thoughts-in-the-debate-about-isis-in-iraq/) in “Unthinkable Thoughts in the Debate About ISIS in Iraq,” over the past few years, many thousands of people in Iraq have attempted to lodge peaceful protests against the Iraqi government. That government has responded with violence instead of giving thoughtful consideration to the objections, and eventually those people found non-violent protest futile. With Uranus as the focal planet of its t-square, Iraq will, in its present configuration, have a difficult time finding stability; anyone who comes to power should realize this. From an astrological point of view, current protests qualify as a legitimate expression of the Iraqi people, and the astrological evidence suggests not only that it will not go away, but also that the application of military weaponry (no doubt coming from the U.S.) will not quell the immediate protests and will surely not solve the grievances that they represent.