This Isn’t the World I Was Meant to Live In! I’ve been sitting here for hours trying to process what just happened, and what might come next, and the truth is, I can’t. No one can. Not the experts, not the analysts, not the generals being dragged onto cable news to make sense of it. Because this isn’t predictable anymore. It’s not strategy. It’s chaos. And it’s terrifying.
I don’t write this lightly. I’ve been watching global events closely for most of my life, and I can tell you, this moment is different. What happened over the weekend, and what’s happening now, has put every one of us in a different kind of danger. And I feel it in my chest.
Yes, NATO came out and said that the United States did not break international law by bombing Iran. That’s what the lawyers have decided. But let’s be honest, that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it smart. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean the world is safer. The only thing that ruling confirms is that the bar has moved so low, we’re now just relieved when something isn’t technically a war crime.
And here’s what’s happened since: Iran responded with 10 missiles, targeting U.S. military bases in Qatar and Iraq, with most aimed at the Air Force base in Qatar. But here’s what matters, the Americans were warned. They knew the missiles were coming. There was an evacuation. No casualties. No destruction. Just precision without intent to kill. A message, not a massacre.
Ten missiles, just like the U.S. dropped on Iran. Symmetry in firepower, restraint in aim. Will Iran create global economic instability by closing the Strait of Hormuz. It’s not war, not yet. But it’s a line in the sand, and the wind is picking up.
We still don’t even know the full extent of the damage from the original U.S. strike. A Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) is underway and will take days. But it doesn’t matter what’s in the final report. I already feel the damage. To diplomacy. To trust. To global stability.
And then there’s this: 400 pounds of enriched uranium is gone. Missing. Do you understand what that means? It doesn’t take a nuclear warhead to devastate a city. It takes ambition. It takes desperation. And it takes exactly what we’ve got: chaos, and the loss of any shared rules of engagement.
Iran is not a fringe state. It’s 92 million people. They know their pain is a pawn. And no, that’s not me excusing the Iranian regime. It’s me recognizing that bombing people into democracy has never worked. It radicalizes. It hardens. It justifies the worst voices in the room.
And while the West gasps at the fallout, Russia and China are watching, smirking. Putin doesn’t respect Trump, he plays him. Xi Jinping doesn’t consider Trump an ally, he sees a destabilizer who distracts the world while Beijing tightens its grip.
But let’s go back to where this started. In 2015, there was a deal. The JCPOA. It wasn’t perfect, but it was holding. Iran’s nuclear program was under control. Enrichment was limited. Inspectors had access. And then Donald Trump torched it in 2018, because it didn’t have his name on it.
And now we’re here. Not at full war. But not at peace either.
The NATO Summit is coming, and I keep reminding myself: there will be rational voices in that room. Not all of them. But enough. I want to believe that some of those leaders will rise to the moment, will speak hard truths and force the conversation that needs to happen.
Will Trump storm out when he doesn’t get the applause he craves? Or will he double down on his old song, the one where America’s doing all the “heavy lifting” and everyone else better pay up?
I don’t know. But this will be a critical NATO Summit, just like the G7 was. Because every gathering of world leaders right now carries weight. Every table matters. We are literally and figuratively on fire. And so I’ll post this with the image it deserves: a picture of our world burning. Because that’s what we’re watching.
And I still believe, just barely, that someone in that room will have the courage to try and put the fire out. My grandfather fought in the mud. My father flew through smoke and flak. They never met my granddaughter, but she was the reason. And now the sky they cleared is dark again.
Nancy's Notes 