War Update: Israel’s True Motives, Potential False Flags, and Oncoming Global Crisis

**Tucker Carlson** (0:01)
It's a safe bet that almost no one involved in the war now ongoing in Iran and the Gulf would like to see it continue much longer. If you were to poll, well, the Iranians or the Americans, basically anybody, how long do you want this to go? Very few people would say, I want it to go a long time. But that doesn't mean it won't go a long time. Unfortunately, it is likely to, it's unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Of course, that could prove to be untrue. You never know. It's an utterly dynamic situation. But big picture, there are still a couple of unresolved questions that this war may resolve. This war may be the only thing that resolves them. And so until there's a consensus on the answers to those questions, it probably is going to continue. What are those questions? Well, the first is geopolitical. And it's the biggest question of all, which is who runs the world? Who gets to make the decisions? Not simply who's richest, but who makes the rules? Who sets the terms?
And for most of our lifetimes, there has been no question about that. The answer has been the United States. The United States sets the rules. The United States runs the world. That's been true in the western half of the world since 1945, when the US emerged stronger and richer than any other nation after the end of World War II. And it's been true since August of 1991, 35 years ago, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States has reigned in a unipolar world. That's what they call it. There's just one pole. There's one center of gravity. There's one power center. And that's been the United States. But that has changed over the past several years, maybe decades, certainly since China was admitted into the WTO in 2001 Now it is a multipolar world. You've heard that phrase, no doubt. And that means there are a couple, at least a couple centers of gravity. Really, there are two. There's the US and the constellation of states with which it's allied. And then there is on the eastern hemisphere of the globe, China. And China is now a peer with the United States, at least, almost no matter how you measure it. Population, of course, much bigger. Military power. Well, we're not quite sure, but certainly from a technological and industrial output standpoint, at least a peer. And then on a pure economic level, well, China has a bigger economy, a bigger real economy than the United States. So yes, China is a peer. And so the question is, since you now have two countries that are roughly evenly matched, we think, we never do know until they come into conflict, but they seem roughly evenly matched, who gets to set the terms for commerce and diplomacy and everything else that happens on the globe? Well, if you were to reach a diplomatic solution, there would be, in effect, a power sharing agreement between these two countries. You take the East, I take the West, here are the terms.
But unfortunately, no such agreement, formal or informal, has been reached for a bunch of reasons. It's everybody's fault. But one of the reasons is almost nobody in Washington can get his head around the current, present, obvious reality, which is, no, we don't run everything anymore. We are in competition, not necessarily in conflict, but in competition with this other country that's as least as powerful as we are, called China, different system, language, culture, et cetera. But at least every bit is powerful. And so you can't make unilateral decisions anymore. It's sort of that moment that many parents face when used to barking orders at their kids, they realize the kid is taller than them. And like, it's a new relationship in some ways. You're always the parent, but you can't just bark orders anymore. That's pretty much where we are with China, or maybe a little past that actually. And what we've noticed over the past several years is the total unwillingness, the inflexibility of Washington policy makers to just acknowledge the reality. And instead, even as we speak, there's probably some symposium underway in Washington about what will we do if China invades Taiwan? Well, of course, from China's perspective, Taiwan is part of China. It just sort of run off for the past 75 years, but it's still part of China. That's their view. And the United States, of course, isn't in a position to stop the reclamation of Taiwan. Let's stop lying. And yet, only in DC is that not obvious, which is to say people in Washington are still acting like they're running everything unopposed, but they're not. And the rest of the world is looking on and thinking, at some point, you got to knock it off and face reality. Now, there are a lot of people in the United States, me included, who would like to live in a unipolar world. It's way less fun to be constrained, to have to come to terms with another country before you make a decision. No one wants to do that. No one wants to be challenged. But again, it's sort of not up to us or anyone the moment that you live in. You're not in charge of reality, actually. And so this is the reality we live in. And the question is, are we going to come to terms with it in a reasonable way, or are we going to be forced through use of arms to face that reality? And it looks increasingly like the latter, unfortunately. That is not the way to settle matters like this, because you can emerge greatly diminished from those contests and find yourself in a much weaker negotiating position. Better negotiate while you're strong than when you're weak. But our leaders weren't wise or farsighted enough to do that. Seized by hubris, they were dictating terms.