Crises within Crises

For this blog post, I originally intended to write only about COP28, the international meeting dealing with the ever-growing environmental crisis. Then, I read powerful opinion pieces by Robert Kagan and became alarmed at the expanding political crisis in the U.S.

But how can we neglect to consider the crises in Gaza, Ukraine, and other countries where warfare continues, such as in Myanmar and Sudan that get far less press coverage? In addition, there are millions of individuals in our world who are facing personal crises of various sorts.

Indeed, there are crises within crises that threaten the well-being and even the survival of individuals, nations, and the world civilization as a whole. Please think with me about these crises, beginning with the outer circle that includes the whole world and moving down to the inner circle of individuals. 

The ever-growing environmental crisis was the central concern of COP28, which met in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.*¹ The first COP meeting, convened in Berlin, was in 1995 and there have been yearly meetings since then.

As I have repeatedly pointed out over the last two years, the current ecological predicament is a crisis that threatens the very existence of the world as we know it (TWAWKI). Some progress was made toward alleviating the global environmental crisis at COP28, but it’s probably too little too late.*²

There will be dire consequences for most of the world’s population if drastic changes are not made soon, which is highly unlikely. This is the existential crisis in which all the other crises exist.

The wars in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza are crises for people living in those areas of the world. But there is an ongoing possibility that they will expand into larger wars. In the worst-case scenario, either of these wars could conceivably escalate into World War III.

These crises are rather localized now, but they might conceivably enlarge to rival the ecological crisis as an existential threat to TWAWKI.

Within these two larger crises is the political crisis in the United States. While this crisis is only brewing at present, there is a real and present danger of democracy being replaced in the U.S. with a form of fascism.

I had not been aware of scholar and journalist Robert Kagan until this month, but he is an editor at large for The Washington Post (WaPo) and has been a foreign policy adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidates as well as to Democratic administrations via the Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kagan (b. 1958) left the Republican Party due to the party's nomination of Donald Trump and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Kagan’s Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 WaPo articles were titled “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” and “The Trump dictator-ship: How to stop it.” (These are long pieces, but well worth reading and reflecting on.)

Some Republican politicians are sounding the same warning. For example, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney's new book (released Dec. 5) is titled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. (Hear her talk about that in this Dec. 4 interview on NPR.)

On Dec. 10, Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, expressed the same sentiment, although more mildly, on “Meet the Press.”*³

There is a lot that can happen between now and Election Day next November, but USAmericans must be aware of the danger of losing their democracy—and minorities, the poor, and the underprivileged are the ones who would suffer most under a non-democratic government.

We common people may not be able to do much about the ecological crisis or the crisis in Ukraine or Gaza, but we do have the power to vote and to encourage our friends and neighbors to be informed and to vote accordingly.

The inner circle is the crisis of individuals who are suffering from illness, poverty, discrimination, or personal tragedies. We pray that many of these people will experience new hope during this Christmas season. Who is one such person you can help between now and December 25?

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*¹ COP stands for the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Click here to access the UNFCCC website.)

*² Here is the link to a helpful summary of the mixed results of COP28 on The Guardian’s Dec. 14 website.

*³ See here; Romney’s discussion of this matter begins at about 7 min. 45 sec. into the program. 

On the Verge of World War III?

Increasingly, it looks as if the question is not If but When. And the question is about a preemptive attack on Iran, seeking to destroy their capability for developing nuclear weapons.

Back in February a group of U.S. Senators pledged, “If President Barack Obama feels the need to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear program, Congress will back him.” Last Saturday (Sept. 22), the U.S. Senate, by a 90-1 vote, passed that non-binding resolution.

The Huffington Post headlined their news story about the Senate resolution, “Senators Offer License To Strike Iran Nuclear Program.” The resolution, however, “specifically states that it should not be interpreted as an authorization for the use of military force or a declaration of war.”

Nevertheless, on September 11 Secretary of Defense Panetta said on CBS's “This Morning” program that “the United States has the capability to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb.” He added, “We have the forces in place to be able to not only defend ourselves, but to do what we have to do to try to stop them from developing nuclear weapons.”

Preemptive attacks, though, can go either direction. According to a September 24 story on NBCNews, “Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state [was] preparing to attack it, a senior commander of its elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying on Sunday.

“Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made the comments to Iran’s state-run Arabic language Al-Alam television, according to a report on the network’s website.”

The same story goes on to say that “Hajizadeh, who heads the Guard’s aerospace division, said any attack on Iranian soil could trigger ‘World War III’” (emphasis added).

Talk about World War III is probably a hyperbolic way of talking about the volatile situation in the Near East. But those who think that a preemptive strike on Iran, with or without U.S. approval and/or cooperation, will be a soon-finished affair (another Six Day War) are probably greatly mistaken.

If an obscure YouTube video can spark angry attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and elsewhere, what would a pre-emptive attack on Iran do? Assuming that a quick strike on Iran’s nuclear plants destroyed their intended targets quickly, which is by no means a certain assumption, why would we possibly think that would be the end of the matter?

I have been somewhat worried over the last few months that the President would launch, with Israel, an attack on Iran. Somewhat cynically, perhaps, I thought that was a possibility partly because it would increase the likelihood of the President’s reelection.

If the President is not reelected, there is a strong likelihood that an attack on Iran will be launched much before this time next year. The Republicans have long been critical of the President’s lack of support for Israel—and vocal in their willingness to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon by military means.

As far back as the Republican presidential primary debates last November, Romney declared, “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Even though it would probably not lead to World War III, I strongly believe that a preemptive attack on Iran would be a grave mistake. One of the many reasons I will be voting for Obama again in November is because I think that such an attack would be considerably less likely with him as President.

Note: I found “What if Israel bombed Iran?” in the 9/21 Washington Post to be a quite thought-provoking op-ed article; you can access it here.