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 U.S.

emerged stronger and richer than any other nation after the end of World War II. And it's been true since 1945 when the U.S. 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

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