Editor’s Note: This week's issue is about that gap between what gets decided in rooms most of us will never enter, and what shows up at the pump, in the grocery aisle, and in the cancelled flight. Foreign policy isn't only a separate country from us and it is quite obvious we need Americans to understand why we have the relationships in the world that we do. Without it, you’ll be paying more than money for your freedom and democracy.
There's a 21-mile-wide waterway between Iran and Oman that most Americans didn’t know and couldn't find on a map. It's why gas costs an average of $4.36 today, and why fertilizer prices have jumped 50 percent during spring planting season. That means after you fill up your car, your groceries will cost more to fill up, too. It's why airlines are warning about summer cancellations, why countries in Asia are rationing fuel, and why the Philippines declared a national emergency.
All because of what our current regime thought they could do with the Strait of Hormuz. One-fifth of the world's oil flows through it. And the man who handed Iran the leverage to close it is the same one who told you foreign policy had nothing to do with your life (except when Sleepy Joe was president).
This is the oldest sleight of hand in American politics. Convince people that diplomacy is something that happens elsewhere, to other people, in languages they don't speak, and you can do whatever you want with it.
Wars are foreign. Treaties are foreign. Alliances are foreign. But the gas pump is right there in your neighborhood, which means the decisions that broke it are too. They just don't look like decisions. They look like prices.
Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 despite broad international consensus that Iran was complying with its terms. He didn’t do it because it was failing, but because he wanted to be the one with his name on a deal, even if that meant tearing down what already worked. The deal in place wasn't perfect, but it was functional. It kept Iran in check, allowed international inspections, and bought time.
When nothing replaced the agreement, Iran enriched its uranium stockpile from compliant levels to near-weapons grade. When negotiations collapsed this past spring, it became a useful excuse for Netanyahu (Wormtongue) to convince Trump (the King) to go to war.
Now the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed for business. The International Energy Agency calls it the largest disruption to the global oil market in history. Gulf oil producers have cut output by at least ten million barrels per day. Qatar's largest liquified natural gas plant has been damaged, with repairs expected to take up to five years. These outcomes will mean higher food prices, more expensive utility bills, and more money shelled out to cover the cost of flying to see your family.
Trump made a unilateral decision without consulting allied nations, then called them "paper tigers" when they declined to join the charade. Spain closed its airspace to American military planes. Germany called the operation "a disastrous mistake." The United Kingdom said it wasn't their war. France refused overflight rights. These are our allies who stood with us after September 11th, who extended Article 5 for the first time in NATO's history, who said an attack on one was an attack on all. Now Trump is throwing a tantrum because they wouldn't join a war he started without them.
There's a lesson that every American needs to understand from this: you cannot have a high quality of life while treating the rest of the world as irrelevant.
A century of alliances, treaties, and diplomatic back-channels is the soft power built over decades to maintain some world order. It exists because Americans a long time ago understood that prosperity at home depends on stability abroad. We are connected and always will be. We ride a very small planet in the expanse of the universe.
Soft power is a phrase that sounds weak to people who've been told that strength is the only language that matters. But soft power is why the world priced its oil in dollars and not another form of currency. It's why American companies could do business in most countries around the world. It's why a phone call from a U.S. official used to get things done. The right thing.
That type of power is built with face-to-face credibility, consistency, and the willingness to honor commitments and act rational.
Poland's Defense Minister said it as clearly as anyone: "There is no NATO without the USA, but there is no strong United States without allies, either."
That's how the world actually works.
The price of looking away from the current regime isn't paid somewhere else. It will be paid right here, by you and me, and by our children. Every time you get gas, buy groceries, book a flight, or save up.
The illusion that foreign policy is someone else's problem is exactly that. An illusion. And right now it's an expensive lesson to learn.
We’ve run out of excuses for this anti-American regime of ours.
These seniors found a way to slow the aging process: Just say 'yes.' Retiree volunteerism is harder to dismiss than the wellness industry would like.
A 'Barbaric' Problem in American Hospitals Is Only Getting Bigger. Our ER nursing friend Arlene sent this one. This is what a broken system looks like before it collapses.
Pulling clean water directly from air, even in deserts with under 20% humidity? This is the kind of quiet engineering breakthrough that ends up mattering more than most headlines.
The Porcupine is dedicated to examples of personal leadership. Democrats have their own disappointments in this regard. Kyrsten Sinema spent her last two years in office voting against everything her base elected her to support, then walked away from the Senate after her own party stopped pretending she belonged in it. Now the Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint alleging she converted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to personal use during her last term. The complaint says she charged donors for the life she wanted while telling Arizona voters she was the only adult in the room. But that’s not all she was busy doing.
Let your goals in life be more than self-service. There is much to learn from these poor lessons in leadership, no matter what party, country, or level of wealth.
Certain groups of citizens loved to add those little Biden stickers to gas pumps. Now with gas over six dollars a gallon in California, nary a peep. I’ve written in the past on how international commodities are difficult to control with decisions by one man or group, and never should you vote for a candidate on one issue alone.
But there is a clear source for the current pricing inflation.
The political memory is short, but the consumer memory isn't. People remember gas prices more than almost any other commodity. While we have the technology and ability to move beyond our over-reliance on oil, until that occurs, politics will continue to use it as a weapon. In this case, the midterms are going to be brutal for a party that built an entire economic argument on kowtowing to the “genius” of one man (see also: Facebook video circulating this week compiling the old quotes side-by-side with current prices.).
The language hasn't caught up to the news. We're fixing that.
chokepoint (noun) /ˈtʃoʊkˌpɔɪnt/
A narrow passage through which traffic must travel and where a smaller force can control a much larger one.
Informal: The gap between Donald Trump saying words and any coherent thought behind them; the mental bottleneck where impulse gets through but information does not.
"The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint that explains your grocery bill."
“During the press conference, the real chokepoint wasn’t foreign policy, it was the five-second delay between Trump’s brain and his mouth where meaning was supposed to form and never did.”
I. The dollar's grip is going to slip. The dollar has been the world's reserve currency for eighty years, and the people in charge have treated that status like it's the law. It isn't. The IMF says the dollar's share of global reserves has fallen from 73% in 2001 to under 58% now. The Porcupine predicts that by year's end, you will see the first credible report of a major commodity trade such as oil, fertilizer, or rare earths, priced and settled entirely outside the dollar between non-aligned countries. It could be done with crypto. We don’t know, but it will be yet another international standard damaged by the actions of the current regime.
II. Europe is going to start building a defense system that doesn't include us. For seventy-five years, NATO meant America showed up. After Hormuz, after Spain closed its airspace and France refused overflight rights, that assumption is dead. The EU is already running mutual-defense simulations without US involvement. Germany has pledged €800 billion for defense capabilities. France is the only EU nuclear power and they know it. The Porcupine predicts that by next spring, a coalition of European nations will announce a formal joint command structure separate from NATO and designed to function if Article 5 stops meaning anything.
III. The next chokepoint isn't Hormuz. It's Bab el-Mandeb. While everyone watches the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis are quietly rebuilding missile capacity along the Red Sea coast and manufacturing their own arms domestically. Bab el-Mandeb is the 18-mile strait between Yemen and Djibouti that carries roughly $1 trillion in goods annually. It is currently the only viable maritime alternative to Hormuz for Gulf oil heading west. The Porcupine predicts that before September, you will wake up to news of a major shipping incident in the Red Sea that closes Bab el-Mandeb. Insurance rates will spike, fuel prices will climb again, and a member of Congress will go on cable news to ask where Yemen is. They'll have a map ready, but by then, it won’t help.
MIND AND SPIRIT
On a hilltop observing city lights
Pondered are the failures and successes
Many of both, yet, though heartened this night
What elements do play to those stresses.
Certainly the heart or mind may take claim
Logic and estimate may drive the win
But are emotion and feeling disdained
Are sentiment and passion believed thin.
Ethics and honesty must take their place
A win or loss must live within design
If true progress is the aim of the chase
If what is done will stand the test of time.
Reason and deep feeling too often clash
Yet they both must drive the desired aim
As conscience and values meet success
Then the mind and heart may become the same.
And Now….
Summer is here. The afternoon showers have become an almost daily occurrence. Make sure you get some time in nature and a bit of time reading some good books.