Enjoy this summer while you can, because global events will soon escalate to an even more alarming level. Needless to say, if 2022 ended right now it would be remembered for a lot of really bad things. Prior to this year, we didn’t have a war in Ukraine, nobody was talking about monkeypox, inflation was a relatively minor concern, food riots weren’t erupting in poor countries, and we weren’t facing the prospect of a very painful recession. So much has happened in the last six months, but I have a feeling that the next six months are going to be even crazier.
How could that be possible?
Well, how about another major war? On Thursday, Yair Lapid and Joe Biden signed “a joint pledge” that expressed their shared intention to do whatever is necessary to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
During a joint appearance following the signing, Biden made the position of the U.S. government very clear…
Biden said Iran has an opportunity to accept the agreement that is before them. “If they don’t, we made absolutely clear: we will not, let me say it again, we will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Of course U.S. officials have been saying similar things for a long time.
But now the IAEA has officially announced that Iran “possesses enough fissile material to construct a nuclear bomb”, and so the time to put up or shut up is here.
Israel has been practicing for a strike on Iran, and I am sure that Lapid and Biden extensively discussed the possibility of such a strike happening in the months ahead.
When that day finally arrives, Iran will inevitably hit back really hard, and then a conflict will start that will be really difficult to stop.
Meanwhile, U.S. relations with China continue to go downhill very quickly. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken once again found a way to really anger the Chinese…
The Biden administration reminded China on Tuesday that the US will intervene to defend the Philippines if Manila’s vessels come under attack in the South China Sea.Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the warning in a statement on the anniversary of an international tribunal ruling that sided with the Philippines against China in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
And then on Wednesday, a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed into disputed waters near the Paracel Islands…
China is fuming after the US Navy on Wednesday sailed a destroyer near the China-controlled Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The Navy’s 7th fleet said that the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold was in the region and passed near the disputed island chain to uphold “the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea.”China’s Southern Theater Command, however, said it closely monitored the American vessel as it had “illegally entered” China’s territorial waters. The PLA military said it drove the warship away.
I think that war in the Middle East is coming first, but as I have been warning for a long time, we will eventually have war with China too.