THIS IS THE CRUCIAL PERIOD

No matter which party emerges victorious in the U.S. midterm elections, the vote count still being underway at the time of this writing, the overall, accelerating trajectory toward nuclear war and economic collapse—two, intertwined elements of the same, rotten imperial system—will hardly be affected. As more and more Americans have come to recognize, both U.S. parties have become cowardly vassals of the imperial system now losing its grip over world affairs, and both are merrily waving the flag of war, be it against Russia, Iran, or both. This election is not where the crucial decisions are being made.

Turn to the two questions now dominating the strategic landscape:

1) Will Donald Trump bomb Iran—possibly with a nuclear weapon—in the days following the election, just as Netanyahu has requested? and

2) If Trump, Putin, and Xi meet at the upcoming APEC summit, could the U.S. be pulled back from the precipice, into a new dynamic? What kind of process would make that possible?

On the first matter, following Tucker Carlson’s Nov. 1 warning that Trump may be within days of order a nuclear strike on Iran, reactions and responses range from that of the National Iranian American Council, which quite sanely calls for an immediate mobilization to prevent such a horrific scenario, to that of Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project, who correctly said in an interview with The War Zone, “It would be a violation of the international Laws of War, have devastating consequences for U.S. foreign policy and the efforts to prevent proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons,” and incorrectly assesses that it would therefore be “highly unlikely.”

Never underestimate the factor of insanity in history.

“The contemporary world order is undergoing a systemic crisis,” wrote Russian Academician Sergey Glazyev in an Oct. 27 article, “driven by the shift in technological and world economic paradigms. Not only is the old architecture of international security collapsing; the economic centers of power, the financial system, the technological leaders, and the very principles of international engagement are all changing…. The old international institutions are no longer capable of providing stability, while new ones are taking shape amidst a struggle between the old and the new centers of power.”

This struggle, he warned, could lead “to the conflagration of a nuclear war.”

In the midst of this, how could a trilateral meeting between the presidents of three major powers, the U.S., Russia, and China, shift that dynamic? Indications are that just such a meeting is shaping up at the upcoming Nov. 18–19 APEC summit in Shenzhen, China: In his daily press briefing, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitri Peskov confirmed, “Work toward arranging such a meeting is ongoing, and hopefully [arrangements for] it will be finalized in the next few days.”

Look at the context for such a meeting. A flurry of conferences and summits have taken place over the past weeks in both China and Russia, from the Global Governance Forum in Xiong’an, to the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow, which brought together representatives from almost every nation of the world to discuss the basis for new arrangements between nations—from security, economy, and agriculture to infrastructure and culture. A new system is taking shape. During this time, both China and Russia have been engaged in intense diplomatic efforts with Iranian officials, as well as others, around the security of the region and proposals to end the war against Iran.

Could a new pathway be offered to the U.S. at such a presidents’ meeting? One which can escape the Thucydides trap? “The Thucydides trap,” Xi Jinping assured Trump during his state visit in September, “can be overcome.”

And what role must the citizenry play? What role can the citizenry play in a nation whose institutions are largely in the grips of the predatory Epstein-class imperialists? Take the lead of independent candidate for President of the United States Diane Sare, who will be holding an event on Nov. 8 to answer the question, “How can we move the American people to understand that our prosperity will only be guaranteed if the well-being of mankind is finally secured?”

This is what Americans, and the world, must be focused on in this very dangerous period ahead.