World war three

Last month, an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea was struck by a Ukrainian drone. Kyiv claimed the vessel was carrying military equipment heading toward Russia. “The regime in Tehran is a direct accomplice to Russian aggression against Ukraine, fueling Moscow’s criminal war with weapons,” Kyiv’s foreign minister said. Tehran reportedly contemplated a counterstrike on one of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, then thought better of it. But the threat of a conflagration is higher now than at any point since the end of the Cold War. Conflicts that are currently contained risk spilling out and engulfing whole regions, perhaps the world. If the Iran and Ukraine conflicts were to merge, we’d see a war that runs from Poland to the edges of India.

What now? After the daring and what everyone is describing as a “flawlessly executed” attack by the United States on Iran’s hardened nuclear facilities Saturday night, Macbeth’s words must be on the minds of many: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly.” Things did not work out so well for the Thane of Cawdor, as Macbeth then was. But even though his attack was not “the be-all and the end-all” he wanted, everyone who wishes for peace must second his opening argument.

Some people are always telling you that the world is soon to end. In the old days many of them would wear sandwich boards describing near-term doom, and not wash. Now, their cousins in the environmental movement glue themselves to oil refineries and don’t shave. In each case, they drip with urgency. The oceans will boil, the land will burn. Your children will fry. Or, alternatively, the Lord will return and take only the righteous to their reward. Be afraid and confess, before it is too late. Public life has these people, too, for this tendency is quite universal. Financial doom-mongering is a profitable little side-line for some economists. The great crash they predict is always upcoming.