The Uyghurs are being genocided in China. The Rohingya are being genocided in Burma. There are people being genocided in South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Syria. This list is surely incomplete. By absolutely no means am I minimizing the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, and I fervently condemn all such actions.
That said, geopolitics is a filthy, nasty, amoral business, and humans are selfish and vicious. The Democrats are playing the game as best they can. Israel has one of the most powerful militaries on the planet, and they can destroy Gaza all on their own. They are the only nation on Earth who refuse to admit they are a nuclear power. The USA is playing two sides in the conflict; publicly they vow to support their ally Israel. They promise weapons and aid. Behind the scenes they are delaying the regular aid, and the additional aid is scheduled years out. The USA is also divided roughly 50/50 on how to react to this conflict and is forced to play a similar game with the American public, because there are factions here calling for Civil War 2, and wouldn’t that complicate things?
You want immediate solutions, just like we all do. The only solution is convincing Israel to disengage, which is certainly being communicated behind the scenes. International sanctions would help, but international public support must get behind that. Should we move a couple carrier groups just offshore to threaten Israel? Sounds like an option, but what would that do to the balance of powers in the Middle East? What would Iran do? How will China react to such provocations? Will they take the opportunity to distract from their domestic issues by invading Taiwan, the global high tech manufacturing powerhouse? How will it affect the war in Ukraine and Russia? Iran is already helping Russia and brutalizing their own people for advocating freedom.
Conflict between three precarious superpowers vying for supremacy and balancing conflicts between their weaker neighbors. Nukes all over the place. That is a plausible scenario for how to start WW3. Probably something best avoided, exceedingly carefully, and unfortunately, horrifically slowly.
So that’s the situation. Is there anything I missed? Of course there is. There are thousands of factors in play. Take for instance, the fact that military technology is on the cusp of changing completely to autonomous drone swarms. There’s the fact that MAGA is being driven by an Evangelical death cult who are convinced that if they glass the Middle East, they can force Jesus to return for Armageddon. Then there’s climate change to deal with.
Those smaller genocides I mentioned at the start get largely ignored simply because those nations are not major players, or because we can do almost nothing about them.
There are no easy, quick solutions. Geopolitics is a horror show. I’m not trying to convince you to disengage, or accept it, or get used to it. By all means, engage, refuse to accept it, rage against the dying of the light.
But remember that people are engaging in global diplomatic strategy because they too are horrified. Remember that the stakes are calamitous. This is not the democrat’s fault. We are 8 billion barely-not-chimps who have seized the keys to the Universe somewhat earlier than we have figured out there are no gods coming to save us from ourselves. Sh!t just is.
And if you want to see just how bad it can get, there’s always letting Trump turn everything to hell again. It’s mind-boggling how much of our current situation is directly his stupid fücking fault. That’s all a protest vote will get us; more of the worst. Yes, the GOP is horrifyingly worse than the Democrats. You care deeply and that is a wondrous, beautiful thing. We need you. Stop deluding yourself that both sides are the same. Get out and fücking vote.