2026-06-18
1 小时 24 分钟In your mind's eye, you imagine the American empire ending
someday probably in like a conflagration in some sort of conflict with another great power.
And if you had to pick one, you would imagine the end might come in a dispute over Taiwan,
formally for most of the island off mainland China that China considers part of its country.
There's been a dispute about this for almost 80 years.
And the United States has sort of informally suggested that it would defend Taiwan sovereignty and periodically that.
Part of the world, South China Sea pops into the news and you think, wow,
that could be a big deal if we actually had a war with China because every year they get stronger,
they now have a bigger economy than ours.
And you can kind of imagine some reckless American leader destroying American power over Taiwan.
But you probably never imagine that the end of American Empire would come in a little over 100-day conflict
with a little rogue state on the Persian Gulf that has the 34th largest economy in the world, a country called Iran,
which generations of Americans have been raised to believe as crazy and dangerous,
but basically irrelevant and certainly not civilized,
and in no way capable of affecting America's place in the global hierarchy.
You just couldn't imagine that would happen.
But something like that apparently has happened and we know because we now have the text of the MOU,
the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran that, unless something happens,
is going to be signed in two days this Friday in Switzerland by both countries.
Now, versions of this have been circulating for the past three days.