Short answer: sort of. 

Earlier today, I wrote my analysis of Iran's attack on Israel, suggesting that it was all Kabuki theater, allowing Iran to save face after Israel's attack on Iran in Damascus. Barring an Israeli strike of some significance against Iran, I stand by that analysis. Allowing a fake attack on Israel was probably the best of some bad options. 

That said, when looked at in the larger context of where things stand in the wider world, it is clear that President Biden has painted us into a corner, allowing an Axis of Autocracies to coalesce and grow in power over the past 3 1/2 years. In so doing, he has lit the fuse for a coming world war. 

Or perhaps not quite coming. In a way, it is here, although the major powers have yet to fire shots directly at each other. It is neither a "hot" war nor a "cold war" but a warm one. 

Call it "global warming," Biden style. 

'Eventually the West is going to have to have a proper war with Iran. We're in a 1930s moment right now, and it's that Chamberlain feeling of not wanting to upset Adolf Hitler.'

Defence Analyst, James Marlow, believes the West will eventually go to war with Iran. pic.twitter.com/LGI7gpYAA9

— GB News (@GBNEWS) April 15, 2024

War and conflict have been breaking out around the world. 

Ukraine and Israel are the most obvious fronts, but the Chinese have been challenging the territorial waters of their neighbors and, of course, keeps making noises about Taiwan. Then there is the commerce raiding taking place and the threats in the Red Sea. 

Then there are the border invasions that have bedeviled Western countries, and the flow of weapons out of Iran to its proxies and Russia, North Korea and China's supplying Putin's aggression, and the teetering of Turkey playing NATO and the Axis of Autocracies off each other. 

Chaos is everywhere, and we are idiots if we don't see each of these challenges in the context of a larger conflict. Our adversaries are at war with us, and only they seem to know that. 

Biden is an appeaser, and appeasement only works with neutral and friendly countries. 

Looking at today’s wars as local issues is a huge mistake. There is one war and it is global https://t.co/9eBKb97xwq

— Mark Meyer (@mmyer1018) April 15, 2024

David Axe at The Telegraph argues this point, focusing on the importance of defeating Russia in Ukraine. I am less convinced than he that Ukraine is the crux of the conflict or that Russia can be militarily defeated on that front. Clearly, the war is bleeding the Russian state dry by destroying its military capacity, though. But Ukraine, even with Western weapons, likely can't drive Russia out of the Donbas or Crimea. 

It seems that the most threatening fronts of the warm war are in the Middle East, the waters around China, and, most particularly, our borders. 

The Israel-Hamas war has the potential to spread in a region that is vital to world security, and Western countries have been pretty weak-kneed. Military support for Israel has been strong, but Western countries have allowed Hamas to win the propaganda war so far. The Iranian attack is an opportunity for a reset. Let's see if they take it. 

I suspect not, though. Biden is worried about his election, not world peace. Or American security for that matter, since he has been sacrificing both for over three years. 

The incursion of third-world anti-Western migrants is a longer-term threat but an existential one. World War III will almost certainly not threaten the territory of any Western country because nobody wants a nuclear war. Still, the wave of illegal third-world migrants threatens to hollow out our countries as our streets become an unacknowledged battleground. 

All those pro-Hamas protesters marching in Western cities are a direct result of years of facilitated migration of anti-Western third-worlders. Our educational and academic elites egg them on and provide American ground troops of brainwashed kids who have been educated into hating our country. 

China helps fund that education by pouring billions into our universities. 

Western leaders have been blind to this danger or even courted it. They hoped that the wave of migrants would be grateful to the politicians who allowed it, and Biden clearly hoped that many illegals would vote for him. We'll see about that, but even if that works out for him, it will be at the cost of enervating America. 

Our adversaries understand this perfectly and likely are helping enable it through all those nonprofits guiding migrants to our shores. 

It is all part of an existential conflict between the West and the Rest. Americans are slowly waking up to that fact. Let's hope they act on that knowledge by tossing the current crop of leaders out ASAP.