How might Shakespeare’s Hamlet ponder TO BOMB OR NOT TO BOMB Iran?

trumpshakespear

To bomb, or not to bomb, that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler for the United States to suffer,

The slings and arrows of outrageous Iran,

Or to take arms against their sea of terror

And by opposing, end it. To bomb—to endure

No more; and by responding to their dastardly drone attack,

We end the thousand acts of terror

That we and our allies are heir to:

’tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.

Yet I pause, hold my fire, wait to negotiate.

To bomb, respond in kind;

Perchance to start a raging war—ay, there’s the rub:

For in that war what calamities may come?

Must give us pause—there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who’d bear the scorns of North Korea and Iran,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of dispriz’d respect, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,

When I might my quietus make

With a bare bomb? What president would bear?

To grunt and sweat under a scary life,

But that the dread of something after war,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

Precious few return, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those affronts we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus inaction makes cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of sanctions,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.


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