I generally find the "what's the objective?" narrative on the Iran war irritating because the policy objectives of @POTUS on his foreign policy team have been abundantly clear, even if the public messaging have been less so.
Despite the level of uncertainty swirling around Iran and how the U.S. can be expected to proceed, the truth is that stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons has been a long-stated objective of the Trump administration, writes @TimMilosch https://t.co/HjmsOf1JiZ
Darkening economic clouds and ongoing bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz cast a lengthening shadow over President Trump’s midterms election prospects... at the moment.
https://t.co/ATPP8iGWYy
In my latest @ProvMagazine article, I critique another example of poor political theology from a theologian. I feel like I keep getting pulled into those discussions. I think it's b/c there's something deeply angering to me of sloppy thinking from Bible scholars.
101-year-old World War II veteran Don Graves — the last surviving flamethrower operator from his battalion, which fought on Iwo Jima — sings “God Bless America” at the National Memorial Day Parade.
I think if you’re going to watch a movie on Memorial Day it can’t just be any war movie. It has to be a movie that leans into the tragedy of war and the sacrifices of those Americans who have fought them. and they should be based on true stories and people.
My short list:
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Tim Talks Politics to discuss a subject that has long mattered deeply to me: the Kurds, their history, their relationship with the United States, and their role in a rapidly changing Middle East.
I’m grateful for the conversation and for the chance to bring attention to a people and a region too often misunderstood.
Listen to the full conversation at the link: https://t.co/B1sA7tDWOA
#Kurds #Kurdish #MiddleEast
I think we need to build this.
I designed this below image, representing Lewis and Clark on the Mississippi in the style of Argonath.
At $1 Billion or more, I think it can be done.
Bottom line, @ConceptualJames is right to be drawing our attention to the massive reshaping of the international system that is underway. And we must, indeed, think seriously about who and what values undergird this new system.
@ConceptualJames is right that the Trump administration is responding to, not creating, an emerging world order that is multipolar and overtly hostile to American interests and Western values. And he's right that the US-Israel alliance is a big part of that picture. However...
I don't know if you have noticed that Western Europe is falling, and the Commonwealth is about as Woke as it gets. Where does that leave the Western Alliance? How about the United States? What say ye, America Firsters?
The long general (though not total) period of peace we have enjoyed since WWII is broadly known as the Pax Americana, and it is effectively a generally peaceful and secure world order mostly managed under an International Law Agreement known as the United States Navy, backed by the rest of the U.S. Armed Forces.
That peace was facilitated not merely by American peace through strength but also through a network of Western allies throughout Western Europe and the British Commonwealth (including the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia), plus some others, who provided intelligence sharing and strategic military staging for the United States military (seeing as they never really made real militaries of their own after WWII, for the most part).
Now, in the 21st century, the Commonwealth and Europe have gone Woke, and they're heavily infiltrated with Islamism. They are on the precipice of disaster, and even if they weren't, they're not particularly engaged with American interests anymore. In fact, they're mostly hostile to them since Trump upset the whole little Great Reset, Agenda 2030 program in 2016.
The competing doctrine to that "Postwar Consensus" world, in which Western Europe and the Commonwealth will mostly be slaves, is called the Multipolar World. The idea is simple. The world won't be unipolar (U.S. global hegemony, since 1991) or bipolar (U.S. vs. USSR, 1945-1991). There will be at least three poles, perhaps four (Russia, China, Islamic, Western/US). This is the Russian nutjob Aleksandr Dugin's fantasy, and the World Economic Forum had fully bought into the program too.
It's meant, essentially, to let the People's Republic of China and the Islamic Frankenstein's monster rise, with Russia getting better scraps and big revenge on the West that broke the Soviet Union. It's the "New World Order" program we've all been running from. Of course, a single new hegemon will eventually arise from it, probably the PRC, but the WEF/UN had somewhat different ambitions by the same path, as does the Islamist project.
What if you love America and the American way of life? What if you love life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? What if you love freedom? What if you want the free nations of the world to enjoy something like the Pax Americana?
Well, you can't have that with the Multipolar World model. Western Europe will be slave to the Islamists. Eastern Europe will go to Russia. The Commonwealth, outside of Britain, will be split apart between Islamists and the Chinese. America will be isolated, divided internally, shrunken, and eventually defeated. RIP freedom.
We can have it, though, with a new alliance structure, and if you don't understand this, you don't understand anything about what Trump is doing on the world stage. It isn't just about stopping China or BRICS or securing against terror or grabbing oil or controlling shipping lanes. A whole new world alliance structure (of good guys) is in the works, and the enemies of freedom and prosperity know it and are doing everything possible to stop it.
The first link in this new chain of allies is the U.S.-Israel alliance, and virtually the whole plan depends on this alliance staying strong and accomplishing its initial goals. That's why it's under such heavy attack. It's literally the key to Western values being strong in the 21st and into the 22nd centuries. Nothing less than that.
This alliance could be strengthened immeasurably by being joined by a freed and restored Iran. You must understand this. It isn't just that the IRGC is awful, evil, and on the other side of all of this. It's not just the oil, though that's really important too. It's also that Iran sits geographically at the crucial crossroads of the entire Eastern Hemisphere and the trade circumstances of almost six billion people.
Strategically, at least in certain ways, this growing alliance would likely include India, were it to get off the ground, and Japan as a far-Eastern endcap. It could conceivably include South Korea, though that's dicier now than it was two years ago, and it would likely include Taiwan after a fashion. This alliance would effectively control the Western hemisphere, CENTCOM, and a significant strategic presence in the Pacific Theater.
As a result of this alignment and its consequences, Australia and New Zealand might start rethinking some things in a big way, thus changing the course of some of the Commonwealth. It's definitely in their interests, and they're already starting to realize their current peril, though not strongly enough.
Eastern Europe would want to join as protection against Russia. Western Europe remains a wildcard, but it also stands as largely irrelevant from a strategic perspective save the fact that the European nuclear powers (France and Britain) cannot become Islamist. Canada would resist all of this until it couldn't, which is stupid and oh-so-idiotically Canadian.
Most of the Arabic Middle East wants to modernize. Many of them are sick of the backwards radicalism and want to participate in the 21st century, whatever other designs and ambitions they have for their own kingdoms. They might not join in as strong allies to this development, but they're likely to be solid partners in such a program, unless BRICS and the "New Silk Road" (Belt and Road Initiative) are better deals. Which side do you want them on with all that?
This is what we're really talking about, guys. This is what's really going on. This is what President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are actually brokering in the world. If you care about freedom, prosperity, and peace, you're backing this. If you aren't backing this, you're backing evil empires like the People's Republic of China, the Islamist Crescent, and the revenge fantasies of post-Soviet Russia.
The first link in this chain for peace and prosperity over the next century is the U.S.-Israel alliance. That's the key to making the whole project work. That's why there's such a huge push to break that alliance now before this really gets solidified as the core of what what will replace the faltering Western Alliance in this twenty-first century.
You have a choice. You can support and help reinforce this first link in the chain of freedom, peace, and prosperity for the next 100+ years, or you can be on the side that opposes these, not just in the moment but in the future, not just for some people out there somewhere who you don't care about, like in today's Iran or China, but for most of the people in the world for most of the next century.
If you have turned against the U.S.-Israel alliance, or just Israel, or just Jews, as the result of Red-Green-Brown propaganda over the last few years, you are a useful idiot against this freedom, peace, and prosperous future, but you can stop that today. You can understand what's happening in the world beyond your group chats and get on the right side of one of the most important questions and hinges in world history.
The Trump administration may be (finally) getting that message as seen in the joint op w/ Nigeria against a regional IS commander, but again, that's a a state-level response using state-based tools against a non-state threat. The limitations of that approach are seen in the GWOT.