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A warning sign alerts visitors of the extreme heat dangers at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 279 feet below sea level, in Death Valley National Park, California, U.S. August 17, 2020.
Hard Numbers: Earth sets gloomy climate record, China’s economy deflates, US Marines found dead, Nigeria faces off with Ivory Coast
15: While much of the world is suffering under the weight of inflation, China is battling deflation. Prices in the country have fallen to their lowest level in 15 years. China’s consumer price index fell 0.8% year-over-year in January, as Beijing struggles to rebound from a tanking stock market, collapsing foreign investment, declining exports, and its property sector in freefall.
5: Five US Marines were confirmed dead in California on Thursday, after the helicopter they were in crashed not far from San Diego early Wednesday during a routine training flight. President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden are “heartbroken” and extended their “deepest condolences to their families, their squadron, and the US Marine Corps.”
7,000,000: Nigeria will face off against host nation Ivory Coast in the Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday. Apart from being crowned the champions of Africa’s most prestigious soccer tournament, the winning team takes home $7 million.
US-Iran tensions complicate Biden's Middle East strategy
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. We are still very much focused on the Middle East. That is the top priority. Tony Blinken, Secretary of State, for his fifth trip to the Gulf since October 7th, those horrible terrorist attacks, Ukraine very far down the priority list compared to the engagement the Middle East is presently getting. It certainly feels that way. But that's what we're focusing on.
And the big issue is the American military response to that nightmare scenario that came to pass when US servicemen and women, dozens injured, three killed in Iranian proxy attacks on the Jordan-Syria border. The United States had to respond militarily, did respond militarily, but they also did not want to precipitate an Iranian war with the United States. So they tried to have their way on both sides of the equation and probably end up getting nothing that they want. What do I mean by that? Well, the United States did attack direct Iranian military assets, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military capabilities on the ground in Syria and Iraq, but also telegraphed that very clearly, very publicly, for about five days before they started the attacks, which meant that proxy leaders and most importantly, Iranian leaders were able to get out of Dodge and potentially protect the most sensitive equipment information from those US strikes.
That meant that the Americans got to show that they would take significant military action, but also did not precipitate an Iranian military response. We aren't going to see war right now between the US and Iran, but we also aren't going to see deterrence by the Iranian proxies or by the Iranians in continuing to engage in strikes in civilian tanker traffic through the Red Sea or against Americans on the ground in the region.
Now, if it doesn't resolve any of that conflict that continues to get worse, what does it resolve? Well, it continues to give the Americans a little bit of time, maybe to get a temporary cease-fire in Gaza. That's really where the effort is right now, particularly being engaged with Qatar in coordinating with the Israelis and with Hamas. The hope is that in the next week or two, you get a month of committed cease-fire from the Israelis and you get large numbers of remaining hostages being held by Hamas released to Israel.
Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the war cabinet are nowhere close to succeeding in their war on the ground against Hamas. And that means they have months minimum before they're willing to think about wrapping up that conflict, irrespective of all the international pressure. So what does a month accomplish? While the hope is that a month accomplishes movement towards a Saudi-Israel peace deal where the Americans would proactively recognize a Palestinian state together with the UK and others. The Israeli war cabinet would outline the potential for such a political recognition while security would be provided by somebody else. Don't have to have your own security forces to have your own state, and nobody says that's a requirement. Would it be provided by the Israelis? Well, that wouldn't be acceptable, though. They could have a buffer zone perhaps, would need to be worked out with the Gulf allies, with Egypt, with Jordan. Can that be done in a month? In terms of sticking the landing, that's about the highest degree of difficulty you'd see in gymnastics. And certainly I would take the under in terms of expectations of a peace deal here.
But does Biden feel like he has any better alternatives at this point? And the answer to that is no. Meanwhile, he's being squeezed by the Republicans at home who are pushing for more aid for Israel, not linked to anything. And he's getting squeezed by the progressives that are his own Democratic supporters that are more aligned towards the Palestinians than they are Israel. This is feeling like a no win situation for Biden. And so if he can get a cease-fire and get a few weeks, engage diplomatically, see what shakes loose. Still at the end of the day, there are far more actors around this war, both in Gaza and also more broadly in the Middle East, that are interested in finding ways not to have a lasting cease fire than to see a peace agreement work out. That's true certainly for Hamas. It's true certainly for Netanyahu. It's also true for the Iranian government and the so-called axis of resistance.
And for all of those reasons, I fear that we are still heading for further escalation as opposed to a window that would end this war. Really tough for Biden in an election year, really tough for those in the Middle East living with this at any time.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
US-Iran tensions escalate after deadly drone attack
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week right in midtown Manhattan, New York City. And the Middle East war continuing to expand as we have been convinced it would. This was this weekend, really the nightmare scenario for the Americans that given all of the Iranian proxy attacks against shipping and against US troops in the region, but eventually they would get through and kill some.
And that is exactly what happened. Three American servicemen killed, dozens injured, and now the Americans have to respond. That response will almost certainly be against Iranian forces to some degree directly. Whether or not that means hitting Iranian territory, that's an open question. But even though the Iranian government denied it, the United States has been very clear, “these are Iran supported attacks.”And while I'm fairly comfortable saying that the Iranians didn't likely order these attacks directly, they're certainly comfortable with the fact that they're going on. They're providing real time intelligence to the groups. They're providing real time weapons to the groups. So it's not like they had nothing to do with it.
Now, the United States doesn't want war with Iran, you know, no holds barred across the region. The Iranians don't want war with the US. But that doesn't mean war is not going to happen. And we're certainly taking a step closer to that right now. Will American strikes be sufficient to stop Iranian proxies from hitting the United States? That's very hard to imagine. It might be uncomfortable with it, but I can't see the Iranians cutting off all of these groups just on the basis of the likely American strikes that are coming next, which means even though we're escalating, we're still not yet at sort of a place where anyone is panicking enough to start restraining and reining in the continued escalation that we're seeing.
The other side of this is we do see the United States working very hard with Qatar and the Israelis to try to facilitate a breakthrough on the hostages. And the Israelis are willing to engage in ways that they were not, even a couple of weeks ago, willing to take a deal that would not be as attractive for them. For example, a longer ceasefire in the strikes in Gaza in return for the hostages being released. In part, the Hamas has been unwilling to engage and has been unwilling to give very much. But that could change if the Iranian government now starts pressing them hard. And that is where we could see a bit of a breakthrough, especially if the United States response is serious to what we've just seen over the weekend.
So are we going to see the Iranians stopping support of the proxies in the region, stopping the attacks? No. But might we see a temporary ceasefire and a breakthrough on the hostage side? That looks more likely to me in the coming days and weeks than it was last week. So, you know, it's dangerous environment. We're continuing to see escalation, but there's certainly lots of moving pieces and not everybody wants to see war.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Can the US-Israel relationship still rely on shared values?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. A Quick Take to kick off your week. We are still very much focused on the war in the Middle East. Now, Israel attacking on the ground and in the air, all of Gaza, including troops in the major city, in the South Khan Younis. Obviously, the numbers of Hamas militants that are getting round-up, that are getting arrested, that are getting killed, going way up. Number of civilians that are getting killed, also going way up. And in the context of all of that, greater tensions on the border with Lebanon, though I still think it's unlikely that Hezbollah is going to enter into the fight. Greater attacks by the Houthis in Yemen on Israeli shipping, as well as on American military vessels in the Red Sea. And that makes it more likely that the Israelis expand their focus on that part of the fight and maybe even strike Iran down the road.
But the big question I suppose is, what does this mean for the long-term relationship with the United States, Israel's relationship with the United States, which has been on display as incredibly strong and unflagging even in the context of major domestic backlash against Biden in his own party for supporting it as well as around the world? And with the United Nations Security Council resolution that the Americans vetoed, 13 countries, including strong American allies, supported, and only the United Kingdom abstained.
I'm brought back to a video interview that Ted Koppel did way back with Richard Nixon, asking why the US had such a strong and abiding relationship with Israel. And Nixon said that the United States doesn't have any particular strategic interest with Israel in the Middle East, but it was a matter of morality. It was a matter of shared values. It's on the back of what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, the necessity of supporting an independent Israeli homeland and state, and also the fact that Israel was the only functioning democracy that shared fundamental values with the United States. And that has indeed been the basis of this relationship for a very long time.
The question to ask is, is that now changing? There are two ways it could change. One is, it changes because Israel no longer reflects those values. And two, it can change because the Americans no longer care about that nature of a relationship. And I think both of those things are under some pressure right now.
On the former, I think that it has to be said that the United States has a lot of relationships. In fact, in many ways, most of its strategic relationships around the world are not just with countries that are democracies but are also with countries that are really strategically important to the US, like Canada, and Mexico, and Germany, and the UK, and Japan, and South Korea. You could make these arguments economically and from a national security perspective. Israel, you really can't. It's a tiny country, 10 million people in the middle of the Middle East. And economically, the US has far more interest and alignment with just about anybody else, and yet Israel gets $3.8 billion of military support for the US. The US is there for them through thick and thin. But the present Israeli government has been uninterested in rule of law when it comes to the West Bank and expanding settlements illegally, uninterested in rule of law and separation and balance of powers when it comes to an independent, though very strong judiciary and riding roughshod over the laws that regulate proper governance and transparency and checks on the Israeli executive. In this regard, Israel, under Netanyahu and his far-right government, has become less of a democracy, a functional democracy, and certainly less of a country that shares the values that the Americans, at least in principle, stand for and want to uphold.
On the other side, the United States has certainly had its challenges in its values historically. I mean, you look at some of the photographs of all of these militants that are lined up and stripped down and bound, some of whom are Hamas terrorists and some of whom are just innocent bystanders, and what do you remember as an American? Feels like Abu Ghraib, feels like the failed war in Iraq after 9/11. And that's a mirror on the United States that a lot of Americans don't want to be reminded of. A lot of Americans aren't so sure what the United States stands for. Certainly, if Americans don't feel like they're being treated properly by their own government, are going to be a lot less interested in continuing to send money and support and engage with conflicts internationally, especially if they're not a hundred percent convinced that they are standing on the right side.
Now, on the back of October 7th, I think pretty much every American, and there's always an exception, you can always find someone that'll support anything, but the outrage in the United States for what happened to the Israelis, what happened to the Jewish people on that day was very strong and very palpable. A couple of months later, it feels very different given the nature of the war and the comparative indifference in Israel of the plights of the Palestinian civilians that are on the ground in Gaza.
So here I do worry that what President Nixon had to say a few decades ago, and the level of confidence that any Israeli leader would feel very strongly, comforted by the fact that Israel wasn't strategically important but was morally essential, had alignment of values, that the Americans would stand for that no matter what. Well, I'm not so sure that we feel as comforted by that in today's environment, neither an Israeli government nor an American government going forward. It's something to be cognizant of at the very least and something that perhaps we can all come back to.
Certainly, if there is any opportunity here going forward, it is that in the aftermath of this horrible war, that there will be an effort from all sides, but led once again diplomatically by the United States to bring peace to this region, to bring opportunities for the Palestinian people where everyone involved is going to have to compromise in ways that today seem uncomfortable, even for some inconceivable, but a long-term and durable US relationship with its principle ally in the Middle East will need to be based on that essentially.
So that's it for me. I hope everyone's doing well, and I'll talk to y'all real soon.
US-Israel relations strained as Gaza war continues
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here from Tokyo, Japan. And a Quick Take to kick off your week. And, of course, we are still talking about the ongoing war in the Middle East, which is very much on again, as there is inability to get further deals on hostages for prisoners and aid. And that means the Gaza War is not only in the north, but now across the south as well. And this is a significant problem for the United States which, increasingly, is finding itself isolated on this issue. In fact, I would say in terms of global support for the US on Israel, it's about as opposed as we saw in the initial weeks of the world against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's a shocking place to be, given, first of all, how important and how deep the US Military alliance is and has been with Israel. And, also, given that it is in response to horrific, unprecedented terrorist attacks and unspeakable atrocities on October 7th.
But the reality is that, as the war has pressed on, the information war is being won by Hamas internationally. And the level of atrocities that are being committed on the ground, and impossible to remove Hamas, short of that, is hurting Israel's position. We are seeing the Americans start to move publicly towards a position of pressuring Israel more. And I specifically note, with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who came out in recent hours saying that the Palestinian civilian population would be the center of the future of whether or not there's resolution and peace and stability following this war. And that Israel was in danger of winning the tactical battle, but losing the strategic battle, as Palestinians continue to be devastated in large, large numbers. That's the first time I've ever seen a US Secretary of Defense talk about the potential strategic loss in a war of a principal US ally, certainly in my lifetime. And it was said pointedly and certainly with preparation. In other words, this was a message, even like a brushback against Bibi Netanyahu and the war cabinet.
Two other things I would mention quickly. One is that the cases against Bibi Netanyahu at home in Israel, you'd think these aren't relevant to the war, but they have been reopened. And those investigations are restarting now in the Jerusalem District Court. And certainly Bibi understands that unless he's able... Very unpopular right now, not likely to last very much beyond the war. Unless he's able to get his political allies to find a way to make those crimes not crimes, legislatively, then he's facing jail time. So he has an incentive to keep the war going domestically, in addition to removing Hamas.
There's also the question of what it means to destroy Hamas. Is it you have to kill the leadership, but you can still have a lot of people running around with weapons? Is that you have to get rid of all of the tunnel infrastructure and all of their military infrastructure? At some point, someone's going to make that decision inside the Israeli war cabinet, and it's not going to be 100 or zero. It's going to be 50% or 60% or 70% or 80%. And that decision is going to be not just about what the Israeli generals think, but also the level of international pressure on the country. So it's a tough one.
Finally, when we look at the Middle East more broadly, as the Israelis have restarted the war in Gaza against Hamas, you also have a significant escalation of Houthis, the Shia militant forces in Yemen, attacking the United States. And an unprecedented level of military strikes against the US warship, as well as lots of commercial traffic and the Americans responding in kind. That is very different. For the first time, not a nuisance attack against an American ship or a base that would be easy to shoot down, but rather a more significant and extended amount of violence. The potential for this war to expand across the region is very real indeed. And in that regard, we don't see guardrails in the Middle East. That's also something that a Biden administration, facing a very tough reelection campaign, is super, super concerned about. So anyway, that's it from me for now, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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- Can the US-Israel relationship still rely on shared values? - GZERO Media ›
Israel’s geopolitical missteps in Gaza
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Back to the Middle East. We are now over a month of war between Israel and Hamas following the October 7th terror attacks. And frankly, it is not going all that well. What I mean by that is, it's an awful lot of carnage. It's an awful lot of political division around the world. And Israel, with the exception of a strong relationship with the United States, feels increasingly isolated. That's certainly in the message I was hearing from the Europeans over the last week, getting more and more uncomfortable as this war goes on. The Americans privately saying that to the Israelis, though publicly, certainly standing very, very strongly with them. And members of the Israeli cabinet increasingly believing that the pressure on them is going to grow significantly over the next few weeks as the war continues.
So is there anything else they could have done, right? Because I mean, if you're saying, well, this is really challenging, the fight and it's leading to enormous backlash and, you know, from the region and from the Global South and even from countries that are quite friendly and well-disposed to Israel, then what might you have suggested they do instead?
And here my view is, when you have enormous support from the West in particular, but also sympathies more broadly, following these horrible terrorist attacks on October 7th. And let's remember, I mean, this was civilians that were targeted, that were brutally murdered. This was not Israeli settlers who were fighting on the right. It certainly wasn't the military, was actually progressives on the left. It was the people that were most oriented to peace, were the ones that were gunned down and tortured and taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza. So if there was ever a time that the Israelis were going to have sympathy, it would be right after this. And my view is use that in the same way the United States did after 9/11. And they built a coalition of the willing with dozens of countries that were prepared to support them to go into Afghanistan, and specifically to take out Al-Qaeda. You build that coalition. There were countries, of course, NATO's allies, no surprise, the UK and France and Canada. But I mean, countries like Georgia were involved in sending people to UAE.
And this, I think, is an opportunity that the Israelis really did have. When French President Macron traveled to Israel, he said that they were prepared to join the fight against Hamas, join the fight on terror with the Israelis. The Americans, of course, immediately sending, you know, sort of troops to the region, as well as troops on the ground to act as advisors, a lot of intelligence support. I think you would have gotten significant support from the Germans in this environment, from the UK, in this environment. And the point here is that in the immediate weeks after the attacks, instead of massive bombing attacks and then a ground war instead, work first and foremost on a coalition, build multilateral support, heck, work with the Saudis. The Gulf states are strongly interested in working with Israel. They hate Hamas. They want the end of Hamas. They find, you know, this would be a dangerous movement that's much more aligned with their enemies. The Iranians. So Israel had a very strong geopolitical position and the ability to use it if their initial response was, “we're going to be stronger, we're going to build on all of this sympathy to have not just us fighting against Hamas, but everybody.”
Now, would that have constrained what Israel would have done? Would it have meant that they would have been more pinpoint in their bombing? It would have taken longer, that there wouldn't have been a ground war? Maybe so. But having said all of that, Israel is massively more capable militarily than Hamas is, and they have vastly better border security and they have incredible missile defense and they would have gotten more technological and military support from allies and friends all over the world following these attacks. I don't believe that there is an existential risk to Israel from Hamas. I don't believe there's an existential risk from anybody in the region in terms of military capabilities.
I remember when I was with Netanyahu once at a conference in Herzliya in Israel, and he came and spoke to some of us, a small group, I think it was 30 or 40 folks. And there were some investors in the room and he was talking. The first half of the meeting was all about how Israel was the best possible place to invest. And of course, had, you know, very high ratings in terms of credit and transparency and rule of law. And as a democracy in the region, all of these things. And, you know, everyone's nodding along. And then the second half of the meeting is how the Iranians need to be contained and how they represent an existential threat to Israel. And I mean, both of these things cannot be true at the same time, right? I mean, if you're saying that it's a fantastic place to invest, then it probably isn't really a place that other people can take out.
Israel, of course, has, though, unstated, a serious nuclear force, and they have massive military capabilities and incredibly well-trained Israeli Defense Force. Now, the point here is that, you know, Netanyahu took his eye off the ball, stopped paying attention to border security, undermined the Israeli defense Force's capacities as they were focused on the West Bank, took his eye off the ball on intelligence. But after October 7th, that was never going to happen again. The entire people, the entire country, with a massive additional number of troops being sent precisely to defend Israel. So I don't think it's credible to say that, if the Israelis didn't strike back massively within days and then engage in a massive ground war, that they were suddenly facing an existential further risk from Hamas. No, the risk came because the Israelis, who have every right to defend their borders, weren't doing so before October 7th and needed to do so after October 7th. There's no question that no one should expect Israel to be living next to a territory that is governed by Hamas. And they were going to need to take that leadership at a very least out and have vastly better security capabilities.
But that could be done at a time of Israel's choosing when they had built up much more multilateral support and when they were engaging not by themselves, but with others. And that was absolutely possible, certainly more possible than what we have today. The fact that the French government is saying that they're calling for a ceasefire, they certainly weren't doing that even a week ago. The Americans are privately, increasingly telling the Israelis that you're going to need to stop this relatively soon or the US will limit the military support that's being provided to Israel, three plus billion dollars a year. The fact that, you know, the Gulf states are having summits in the region, Israel's not a part of it. They're not being invited. They're working together. They're not condemning Hamas directly. This is a problem. And I think that, you know, at the end of the day, as much as everyone out there should have sympathy for the brutality that Israel was experiencing on October 7th and the 200 plus hostages that Hamas is still holding today. I mean, any human being has to have sympathy for Israel and for the Jewish people on the back of that.
It is a horrible, horrible thing. But the steps that they have taken geopolitically, the military steps they've taken on the ground, frankly, in my view, is weak in their position. The only thing that is going to ultimately cause an existential risk to Israel and to the Jewish people in Israel, is if they continue to fall into the trap that Hamas has played for them, has placed for them. And so far that appears to be, unfortunately, where they're going. So anyway, that's my view on all of this. I'm sure that nobody agrees with it 100%. But, you know, I promise to always give you my best sense and tell you what I think can be authentic with everybody. And I certainly hope that this doesn't continue to explode and that at the very least, we can keep the fighting itself contained to Gaza and that the humanitarian damage and devastation that we're seeing on the ground gets more limited going forward as opposed to continuing to expand.
I'm not hopeful. I don't expect it. I expect more violence from the settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. And I even think that the northern front with Lebanon and Hezbollah appears to be opening up a little bit more. But that is certainly what none of us want. And we will see where we go from there.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
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What’s Iran’s next move?
Remember that famous line from Bill Clinton’s campaign staffer James Carville back in 1992?: “It’s the economy, stupid!” As Israel’s war with Hamas escalates, it brings to mind—in a nasally Louisiana accent—the phrase “It’s Iran, stupid.”
Because, whether it’s the dizzying arsenal of Hezbollah rockets in southern Lebanon pointed at Israel, or the Houthi drones targeting Israel from Yemen, or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities in Eastern Syria-, one thing is clear: all roads lead back to the Ayatollah. And yet, there’s a big difference between skirmishes with proxy forces and an all-out US/Israel war with Iran.
"Iran feels particularly emboldened at the moment," says Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, who joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World. "Whether it's going after Israel via proxies or going after the US via their proxies. And they may be difficult to deter because they may either correctly read the situation that the US is not interested in a conflict, or they may misread it. And that could lead us to more direct conflict with Iran."
So how close is Iran to waging war on Israel, and its Western allies? Iran is, after all, a rogue nation well on its way to developing a nuclear weapon. And that’s an escalation that no one, including Iranian leadership, wants to see happen.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
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Israel-Hamas war set to expand & directly involve US
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: It is, of course, an expansion of the war in the Middle East. Israeli troops and tanks now inside Gaza. The ground invasion, the second phase, as they've said, is well underway. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, his advisor saying that payback has begun.
It is, of course, retribution for Hamas terrorist attacks, killing 1400 Israelis, mostly civilians, on October 7th. And since then, the number keeps going up. Over 250, it looks like total hostages having been taken and still mostly being held by Hamas in Gaza. This is a horrible tragedy on every count and the deaths that we will see, both the ability of the Israeli Defense Forces to take out Hamas military leadership and also the Palestinian civilians who are caught up in this fight.
Those numbers, those death numbers are going to go way, way up over the coming weeks. And I now believe we can no longer contain this war in Gaza. That was perhaps mostly possible in the past couple of weeks. It is so no longer, I think, the level of radicalization and violence that you will see on the West Bank from the Palestinians and in return from the IDF and the settlers, also from Hezbollah in the north and from Iranian proxies like the Houthis in Yemen and elsewhere, Iraq, Syria. That is going to be a reality in very short order.
And the United States will be involved in that war. In that regard, very different from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which almost two years in now, and a massive amount of military support and expense from the United States and allies to support the Ukrainians. But no fighting, no direct fighting of American soldiers. Already, we have over 20 US servicemen and women that have been casualties of Shia-Iranian proxy strikes in the region. Those numbers expected to go way, way up. Also, anti-Semitism attacks across the region. Terrorism against the United States in the region and more broadly. I expect that we're going to see so much more of that in the coming weeks and months. And that means that this is not just Israel's war against Hamas. It is also a US war in the Middle East.
And the Americans will resist saying that. But increasingly that will be a reality. And in that regard, I do think that Biden has some vulnerabilities here in 2024. Trump is going to say no new war started under him. And now you've got two wars, Russia invading Ukraine and now you've got this Middle East crisis under Biden. And most Americans, even though they support Israel, though certainly not all, and a majority of Gen Z in the US does not, but a majority overall do. A majority in the US does not want to be involved in a new war in the Middle East, and that I think especially a war the Americans have sort of like found themselves engaged in, as opposed to, actively said, we're fighting and here's why. That I think, is going to go over badly for Biden in 2024.
Still a very, very close race, of course, and you see that. But for the near term, we're focused on the impact in the region, the reality that relations in the Gulf for Israel have been, at best, frozen for the foreseeable future and at worst degraded substantially. Turkey in particular, you saw President Erdogan using the 100th Republic Day as an opportunity to bring out massive numbers of supporters for Palestine. And those were the statements he was making, referred to Hamas as a liberation movement, refused to condemn them, condemned Israel, and the Israelis withdrew their diplomats. We're going to see a lot a lot more of that kind of behavior going forward as well. I wish we had good news here. War in the Middle East rarely brings it, and I fear that escalation is about to get much, much worse.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
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