This is the mother of all battles. It is more important than the football World Cup final, boxing finals and Taylor Swift’s tours. A few American swing states will determine the fate of the world for the next four years. They will determine security and the economy, and the fate of maps that are in disarray and millions of refugees and displaced people. The ballot boxes will have their say and determine the identity of who will hold the American thread that stretches across borders and continents.
There is no need to remind that the master of the White House is the master of the world’s top economy and most advanced military machine in history. He is the master of fleets that move oceans and seas. The thread reassures, deters, threatens and attacks. It defends the interests and the image and thwarts some adventures and supports others.
The American elections are not purely American as their outcomes are important to allies and enemies alike and other nations across the global village. No one can ignore the results or pretend to be indifferent.
The powerful figures of the world are eagerly awaiting the results, and so are the weak people of the world. The results will determine their fates and agendas. The master of the Kremlin is a powerful man. He knows the results of the elections even before the polls open. He has fun in threatening the Europeans and the world with a nuclear attack should they think of defeating, besieging or humiliating Russia.
But Vladimir Putin knows that the end of the war in Ukraine needs the “signature” of the American president, not Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Putin knows the reach of the American thread. If it weren’t for it, he would have already unleashed his might in reclaiming all territories that the West had seized after the Soviet Union’s suicide.
Putin is not concerned with the resident of the Elysee Palace, 10 Downing Street or the German chancellor. He will be worried about the American thread if it chooses to corner his country with economic sanctions and pump more weapons and aid to Ukraine. He is concerned with a painful truth. Had he not threatened to use nuclear weapons, NATO forces would have advanced and defeated the Red Army on which he had spent a fortune rebuilding.
Another man will stay up late to find out the results of the American elections. Xi Jinping sits on Mao Zedong’s throne and the world’s second most powerful economy. He knows that he is struggling against the American thread in world markets and Taiwan. He knows that were it not for that thread, he would have achieved what his ancestors could not: Restoring Taiwan to China. He knows that if Donald Trump wins the race and decides to impose harsh tariffs on Chinese goods, then the repercussions will be felt in the markets and the entire global economy.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te will also be staying up late to learn the results of the American elections. He has a tiring and painful job. He watches the older brother’s ships and planes sail and fly by as a reminder of his power in strangling his rebellious island were it not for the American thread. Zelenskyy’s fate does not give him cause to be optimistic.
The people of the terrible Middle East will in turn stay up late to await the outcome of the elections. The American thread is still decisive in reining in their wars or organizing them. The Iranian supreme leader and Revolutionary Guards commanders will also stay up in anticipation of the results. Israel has gone too far in striking Iran’s proxies and “advisors” and has lured it into a ring it has long sought to avoid.
The satellites are spies that do not rest. They revealed that the Israeli strike on Iran was indeed painful and embarrassing. The supreme leader gave the signal for a retaliation. Will the Iranian response wait the outcome of the elections, precede it or take place as they are being announced? What if the man who ordered Qassem Soleimani’s killing returns to the White House? Is the deployment of the American B-52 bomber to the region just a message of deterrence or is there more to it?
On this day in 1979, student revolutionaries loyal to Imam Khomeini stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took its staff hostage. The ball of fire burned President Jimmy Carter, and the hostages were released only after Ronald Reagan took office.
The raid was aimed at cutting the American thread inside Iran. From the very beginning, the Iranian revolution believed that the thread was the wall that was preventing it from becoming a major regional power, especially after the US took it upon itself to take down the Iraqi wall that was preventing the flow of the revolution in the region. For decades, Iran sought to cut or weaken the American thread. Here it is today being confronted with it yet again, this time in the shape of Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Benjamin Netanyahu will await the results of the American elections. The thread that ties the US to America is not under threat. Israel’s American pillow is firm, but Kamala Harris has her approach and calculations and Donald Trump has his surprises. Netanyahu needs several billions of dollars and ammunition if he decides to forge ahead much farther in his coup against equations in the region.
The leaders of the Middle East will await the results of the American elections. They want to see what the limits are of the Israeli-Iranian duel, the roles in the region, and the Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon. They can possibly bank on the American thread to push forward the dream of an independent Palestinian state and achieve it to prevent more wars from erupting in the future.
Lebanon will await the results of the elections. Past experience has shown that the American envoy alone can stop the Israeli fire. Amos Hochstein’s decision to not make a stop in Lebanon after his last trip to Israel was very costly. Israel wiped out more Lebanese villages off the map and replicated more images of destruction from Gaza in Lebanon.
Talking about America’s demise does not eliminate it. It is the world’s most powerful economy and boasts its most powerful navy. It doesn’t matter if you love it or hate it. It offers protection and hands out guarantees and solutions. Russia is busy with the Ukrainian banquet. China is too far in the distance. Antonio Guterres is semi-retired. There is no choice but to improve conditions related to the American thread to stop the wars and destruction and waves of funerals and displaced.
