The year twenty-twenty was all of two or so days old when the US government — in its infinite wisdom — launched an airstrike on Baghdad International Airport that killed one of the most senior-ranking Iranian military commanders, setting off a grave crisis.
At least that is according to the immediate reaction from very-online observers of the news, who employed the hashtag #WWIII almost immediately, even though at present there is no indication that Moscow and Beijing are about to establish a military alliance with Tehran.
One drone murder undid years of effort to stop the Iranian nuclear program, which now has every reason to exist. From the standpoint of the clerical regime that runs Iran, if it did not want to develop nuclear weapons before, now it is clearly in its interest to do so.
Imagine for a second that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps assassinated the CIA director in, say, Mexico City. Tehran would be in flames immediately, which suggests that the Supreme Leader is showing incredible restraint.
No one can credibly say what will happen next. There is no crystal ball. The past is not prologue, as the saying goes.
Then again, the last decade was chaotic and violent; so far there is no sign this one will not be as well. The hope is that the massive uprisings that the world saw in the early 2010s will continue, that people all over the world will overthrow illegitimate power structures, both state and corporate, that are killing the future.