The growing tension on the world stage is fast approaching a breaking point. On one front, the unprovoked US-Israeli War on Iran has brought about an economic disaster and general revolt in both the US and Israel. With the coming Midterm Elections in the US and the General Elections in Israel, two stark warnings have been made.

Colonel (Retired) Douglas Macgregor, in an article on October 18, 2026 titled, Is President Trump considering the Nuclear Option?, poses the question of whether or not the US President is desperate enough to use a nuclear weapon against Iran. Macgregor, an informed, long time strategic analyst, begins by surveying the terrain in which President Trump finds himself: neither the Ukraine nor the Iran Wars are going well; the world is in a full-blown energy crisis and 1,400 US stocks are down more than 70% from their 52-week highs.

According to Macgregor, President Trump is already desperate enough to offer USD 5,000 bribes to voters to vote Republican. He stated: “This is not the typical forever war that gets a few headlines before gradually fading from view for average Americans. This time Trump’s reckless war has jolted prices Americans pay at the pump, pushed US refinery capacity to its limits and directly compromised the Petrodollar, a circular financing model ensuring global oil profits are reinvested in US Treasuries and other US-Dollar-denominated assets.”

Macgregor stressed: “The damage notwithstanding, it is clear the President will not withdraw US Military forces from the region because Israeli-Firsters will not permit it. So, what are his options? Could the president and his advisers be considering more drastic escalation? Is the spectre of a nuclear strike against Iran, once viewed as a remote possibility, coming into view? Sadly, I think the answer is yes.”

Another warning in this same vein came in just hours ago from esteemed journalist Seymour Hersh. In an article titled Will Trump and Bibi Strike Pickaxe Mountain?, Hersh identifies the harsh reality of the tremendous drop in popularity for both President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating: “Both – facing imminent elections – are again talking of jointly attacking a suspected nuclear enrichment site in Iran. If the planned attack on Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain facility takes place, a well-informed international oil expert told me this week, one sure result will be a response from Iran attacking US allies in the Gulf region. The US will essentially have thrown a beleaguered Saudi Arabia ‘under the bus’.“

After laying out the view of an Israeli official as to why they think they must attack the facility, Hersh comes back to an American official: “Netanyahu, the official added, by ignoring America’s current strategy of ‘Patient Economic Starvation‘, with the goal of creating a people’s movement to finally force the religious leadership out of office, ‘hopes to force the nuclear issue as an election tactic‘ in both Israel and the US. ‘Ain’t working at this end,‘ the official said.“

This brings us back to the importance of the two phone calls made by Pope Leo XIV. While freshly recovering from surgery, the Pope made one call on October 16 to Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and another one on October 19 to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, an important step toward Peace. Can this convergence of minds in Assisi be the catalyst the world needs to achieve true Peace, and a new security and development architecture?

Boundless Ocean of Politics received this article from the International Peace Coalition (IPC) on October 22, 2026.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das