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In the New York Times, Susan Rice writes about Iran and concludes with this: “It’s hard to envision how this ends short of war.”

I’m not making a prediction one way or the other, but it’s pretty easy to envision how this ends short of war. In fact, the most likely scenario is that both sides continue to launch periodic “retaliatory” attacks, but they slowly wind down and we end up right where we started. That’s how things like this usually go.

I’m not saying that’s what will happen. President Trump could do something stupid, or he could goad Iran into doing something stupid. Who knows? But if I had to put my money on something, it would be another few weeks of bluster and low-level strikes, followed by everyone getting exhausted and deciding to call a nervous halt to things.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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