Last of a series

BILLED as a clean decapitation strike, Operation “Epic Fury” fractured the post‑Cold War economic order triggering a cascading breakdown in global supply chains as longstanding guardrails erode. Donald Trump, pretending control over a conflict with no strategic clarity, doubled down.

On March 21, he issued Iran a 48‑hour ultimatum to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the “obliteration” of its power grid, an attack on civilian infrastructure supporting 90 million people — a war crime.

Just as the deadline lapsed, Trump backed off, extending it to five days, then another 10-day extension to April 6 — true to his TACO reputation — claiming “productive conversations” upon “Iranian government requests” — barefaced lies that Iran has denied.

Surreptitiously, Washington floated a 15‑point proposal through Pakistani go‑betweens. Tehran dismissed it outright, punctuating its contempt with new drone strikes in Kuwait. What began as an ultimatum decayed into a performative bargaining script pretending to be a threat.

The economic chokehold

Parts one and two of this series covered the Strait of Hormuz. When Iran closed it, the global economy didn’t just adjust; it convulsed. Oil prices, which sat comfortably under $75 before the war, exploded toward $120.

Iran’s wasn’t an act of desperation; it was premeditated. Before Feb. 28, Iran quietly tripled its oil exports and drew down storage reserves. They positioned the Strait closure as a weapon they could sustain. They had a plan.

Trump fires off midnight “twits-threats,” then wakes to post-tantrum exhaustion, leaving the world frozen at the “Strait.” Markets jumped on chaos — undoubtedly enriching Trump’s cronies — but the damage to the global order won’t heal.

‘Boots on the ground’: Rhetoric of escalation

Diplomacy staggers forward, but the military clock keeps its steady, unforgiving pace. On March 25, Israel — now openly and defiantly signaling a divergence from Washington’s objectives — launched an unprecedented wave of strikes on Tehran’s eastern perimeter. Simultaneously, US Central Command confirmed the arrival of another 5,000 paratroopers, and the Pentagon is reportedly preparing a $200‑billion supplemental request. The buildup marks the point where a standoff begins tilting toward the possibility of US forces entering Iranian territory. If targeting infrastructure fails to shift Tehran’s calculus, Washington is left with only higher‑risk escalations: a ground push into Iran or an amphibious move along the Strait’s coastline. This is a negotiating war — combat and diplomacy fused — each side trying to harden leverage. But coercion has limits. Once those limits are reached, escalation logic takes over, and the path toward a ground conflict becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.

Three scenarios for a world in freefall

As the ultimatums expired without an Iranian capitulation, the administration’s “commitment trap” snapped shut. We are now looking at three distinct trajectories for a world in freefall after the “shock and awe” — similar to the 2003 Iraqi adventurism. The opening strike failed to break Iran’s command structure. Hitting infrastructure didn’t neutralize Tehran’s mobile asymmetric assets, instead it dispersed IRGC units in the Zagros and kept firing cheap drone swarms and anti‑ship missiles. The US controls the air, but the “sieve effect” renders the Strait effectively uninsurable, freezing commercial traffic.

With 20 percent of global oil offline and halting major urea and ammonia exports, fertilizer prices have tripled and global food costs have been driven up an estimated 30 percent by the next harvest. Into this vacuum, China offers “security escorts,” edging out the US Navy in a corridor Washington once dominated.

Scenario one: The Middle Eastern quagmire. The conflict undergoes a horizontal explosion. Hezbollah saturates northern Israel, the Houthis strike Red Sea naval assets, and Suez closes. Iran escalates vertically by striking Gulf desalination plants and enabling cyberattacks on the US power grid. $8/gallon gasoline precipitates civil unrest. Washington is pulled into a multi-front entanglement with no clear exit.

Scenario two: The face-saving retreat. In a cynical pivot, the TACO backpedals, branding the war a “globalist trap,” to salvage his poll numbers, while Tehran — bleeding but defiant — accepts a hollow ceasefire. Both regimes declare a farcical victory: Washington claims “maximum pressure” triumphed, while Iran celebrates the “humiliation of the Great Satan.” This fragile “Cold Peace” restores oil flow, but exposes American resolve as a paper tiger. Regional allies, realizing Washington’s word is worthless, stampede toward Beijing to beg for long-term security guarantees.

Scenario three: Nuclear breakout and unipolar collapse. Tehran races to 90 percent enrichment and conducts its first underground test. Beijing and Moscow formalize a “triple entente” with Iran, providing a nuclear umbrella and a parallel trading system. The world splits into a stable Sino-energy sphere and a Western bloc crushed by $200 oil. The unipolar order gives way to a permanently fractured global system.

The deeper game –why it won’t end

Washington and Jerusalem missed history’s oldest lesson: You can destroy a nation’s arsenal, but not its will. Decapitation is not victory. By eliminating figures like Ali Larijani — men who could translate compromise into policy — they have hollowed out Iran’s negotiating core while leaving its fighting spine intact. The result is not peace but paralysis: a state that cannot bargain yet will not yield. You cannot end a war by dismantling the very machinery required to conclude it.

The exit ramp

We are trapped in a geopolitical “Nash equilibrium” where no actor can shift course without risking total collapse. Global stability is now held hostage by the survival instincts of two men — Trump and Netanyahu. Both launched this war to shield themselves from domestic vulnerabilities — Netanyahu to evade corruption trials and Trump to chase a legacy-defining “victory,” not to mention the Epstein files.

In doing so, they have accelerated a wider civilizational decline.

Before scenario three, the only viable off‑ramp left is institutional removal. Their military and security hierarchies — the supposed adults in the room — must accept that the commanders‑in‑chief are no longer serving national interests, only their own legal survival.

Israel needs a political reset. The opposition can force a no‑confidence vote to remove Netanyahu from direct control of wartime decisions, separating national defense from his unresolved legal battles. A transition government is the only plausible route to a ceasefire that regional actors might respect. Or he can go out the Yitzhak Rabin way in 1995.

In America, Congress must reassert its authority by invoking the War Powers Resolution, curbing offensive operations, and investigating the scope of Epic Fury. Voters also confront a choice about whether to sustain what critics describe as a “forever war.” Analysts argue that the GOP’s posture has amplified global risk while feeding energy volatility.

In the next midnight tweeting cycles, we need to watch the rantings and timing of the Truth Social posts and the developments in Pakistan. Then comes the harder question: In a conflict where both sides escalate to strengthen their bargaining position, who actually holds the leverage to force the first concession?

The answer will redefine the landscape. Meanwhile, these two madmen have pushed the world to a dangerous brink. To ensure humanity’s survival, the pathological narcissism of Trump and the scorched-earth desperation of Netanyahu must be ended before these reckless arsonists incinerate our future. They must be removed with extreme prejudice.

The Senate President crowed yesterday that the party he nominally coheads, PDP-Laban, has a “pleasant problem” — too many potential senatorial candidates. Koko Pimentel’s estimate is they have up to 20 possible choices for the 12-person slate for the 2019 senatorial race. But his list includes the five administration-affiliated senatorial incumbents up for reelection next year. This is a group that has made noises that, much as it prefers to remain in the administration camp, it is unhappy with the way PDP-Laban has been designating its local leaders and candidates, and therefore prefers to strike out on its own, perhaps in alliance with the other administration (regional) party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago, headed by the President’s daughter and current Davao City mayor, Sara Duterte.

Setting aside, then, the five-person “Force,” the administration-oriented but not PDP-friendly reelectionists (Nancy Binay, Sonny Angara, Cynthia Villar, Grace Poe, and JV Ejercito), what Koko’s crowing over is a mixed bag. Some of them have been floated by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (with whom Mayor Duterte clashed in recent months): six representatives (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who is in her last term in the House of Representatives; Albee Benitez, Karlo Nograles, Rey Umali, Geraldine Roman, and Zajid Mangudadatu), three Cabinet members (Bong Go, Harry Roque, and Francis Tolentino), and two other officials (Mocha Uson and Ronald dela Rosa), which still only adds up to 11 possible candidates (who are the missing three?).

Of all of these, the “Force” reelectionists are only fair-weather allies of the present dispensation; their setting themselves apart is about much more than the mess PDP-Laban made in, say, San Juan where support for the Zamoras makes it extremely unattractive for JV Ejercito to consider being in the same slate. Their cohesion is about thinking ahead: Creating the nucleus for the main coalition to beat in the 2022 presidential election. The contingent of congressmen and congresswomen who could become candidates for the Senate, however, seems more a means to kick the Speaker’s rivals upstairs (at least in the case of Benitez and Arroyo) and pad the candidates’ list with token but sacrificial candidates, a similar situation to the executive officials being mentioned as possible candidates (of the executive officials, only Go seems viable, but making him run would deprive the President of the man who actually runs the executive department, and would be a clear signal that the administration is shifting to a post-term protection attitude instead of the more ambitious system-change mode it’s been on, so far).

Vice President Leni Robredo has been more circumspect, saying she’s not sure the Liberal Party can even muster a full slate. The party chair, Kiko Pangilinan, denied that a list circulating online (incumbent Bam Aquino, former senators Mar Roxas, Jun Magsaysay, TG Guingona, current and former representatives Jose Christopher Belmonte, Kaka Bag-ao, Edcel Lagman, Raul Daza, Gary Alejano and Erin Tañada, former governor Eddie Panlilio and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña) had any basis in fact.

What both lists have in common is they could be surveys-on-the-cheap, trial balloons to get the public pulse. Until the 17th Congress reconvenes briefly from May 14 to June 1 for the tail end of its second regular session (only to adjourn sine die until the third regular session begins on July 23), it has nothing much to do. Except, that is, for the barangay elections in May, after a last-ditch effort by the House to postpone them yet again to October failed.

Names can be floated but the real signal will come in July, when the President mounts the rostrum and calls for the big push for a new constitution—or not. Connected to this would be whether the Supreme Court disposes of its own chief, which would spare the Senate—and thus, free up the legislative calendar—to consider Charter change instead of an impeachment trial. In the meantime, what congressmen do seem abuzz over is an unrefusable invitation to the Palace tomorrow — to mark Arroyo’s birthday. An event possibly pregnant with meaning.

Here’s a striking statement about love shared with me by an English college mentor. “Love knows no grammar. How it works can’t be measured by any parts or figures of speech. It goes beyond the literate and illiterate. The sad reality is that, even a fool who has got no philosophy is not spared of its harsh reality.” After almost three decades, I reminded him through a private message of his words. Here’s what he said. “Thank you, Jord. This statement about love is searing to the heart. And, yes, fools do fall for it too. But I thought that we as well speak of the beauty that it gives and not so much focus on the harsh realities. After all, our country has had enough of the negativities.” Thank you, dearest Sir Eugene.

In these decisive times when our nation trembles under the weight of corruption, inequality, and disillusionment, it is you―the youth, burning with idealism, courage, and an unyielding sense of right―who must stand at the forefront of CHANGE. The future of the Philippines hangs in the balance, calling not for silence or apathy, but for unity, conviction, and action. Let your dreams be the spark that ignites renewal; let your voices thunder against injustice; let your hands build the nation our forebears envisioned but never fulfilled. Now is the hour to awaken, to rise, and to lead the march toward a just and transformed Philippines.

Remember, the pages of our history resound with the triumphs of youth who dared to dream and act. From the Propagandists who wielded the pen against tyranny to the Katipuneros who took up arms for freedom, it was always the young who ignited revolutions and rebuilt nations. As Dr. Jose Rizal declared, “The youth is the hope of our motherland,” but that hope is not a gift to be passively claimed; it is a duty to be earned through courage and purpose.

Today’s generation must transform awareness into action―to confront corruption with integrity, to challenge inequality with empathy, and to counter apathy with participation. The time for mere commentary has passed. What the nation demands now is commitment, creativity, and collective resolve. When the youth stand united in conscience and conviction, no obstacle is insurmountable, no reform impossible. The power to redeem the nation’s promise lies not in the hands of the few, but in the awakened spirit of the many. Rise, therefore, as one generation with one objective―to forge a Philippines worthy of its people’s deepest hopes. And to those who were once the torchbearers of youth but have since laid down their fire―hear this call.

The nation does not forget its veterans of hope, those who once believed that change was possible but have since grown weary in the long twilight of disappointment. Thus far history grants no sanctuary to resignation. It demands of every generation the same unrelenting duty―to defend what is right, to confront what is wrong, and to labor still for what remains unfinished.

Now is the moment to rise again. Let not caution disguise itself as wisdom, nor comfort as peace. The courage that once stirred your youth still flickers within; rekindle it, and let it burn anew for the sake of those who follow. Your experience, tempered by time, must now join hands with the fervor of the young - to guide, to mentor, to strengthen.

Together, let the wisdom of the seasoned and the passion of the rising coalesce into a single, indomitable force for renewal. For the task of nation-building is not bound by age, but by conviction. The call of the motherland resounds to all who still believe that the story of the Filipino is not yet complete―and that redemption, though delayed, is still within our grasp if only we choose to act once more. And to those whose hands have long gripped the levers of power―hardened by privilege, dulled by entitlement―hear this with clarity: the era of self-preservation must yield to the dawn of selfless service.

The nation can no longer afford leaders who mistake possession for stewardship, nor governance for dominion. The time has come to relinquish the throne of complacency and make way for the custodians of vision, courage, and renewal.

To step aside is not to surrender, but to honor the sacred rhythm of nationhood―to allow new voices, new hearts, and new minds to breathe life into institutions that have grown stale from neglect. True leadership is an act of stewardship, and stewardship demands humility―to know when to lead, and when to pass the torch. Those who have ruled long enough must now become mentors, not masters; guides, not gatekeepers.

To the youth who will inherit this burden and blessing alike, the call is equally profound. Lead not with arrogance, but with awareness; not with impulse, but with integrity. Let optimism be your discipline―a conscious act of faith in the nation’s capacity to rise again. Lead with inclusivity that unites rather than divides, with courage that reforms rather than destroys, and with resilience that endures when hope seems frail.

For the measure of a new generation’s greatness lies not in its defiance alone, but in its wisdom to build where others have failed. Let your leadership become the living testament that the Philippines, once disillusioned, has learned at last to believe again―through you.

Now, the Filipino youth stand at a defining crossroad of history. The echoes of the past and the murmurs of the future converge upon this moment, and in your hands rests the fragile, however formidable promise of a nation reborn. You are the inheritors of unfinished dreams and the architects of what is yet to be. United in thought and deed, strengthened by the wisdom of history and the fire of conviction, you possess the power to shape a Philippines anchored in justice, animated by democracy, and sustained by the collective flourishing of its people.

The mantle of responsibility has passed to you. Do not falter beneath its weight; bear it with courage, for it is through your resolve that the nation will rise from the ruins of complacency. Let your unity transcend boundaries of region, class, and creed. Let your integrity redefine leadership, and your compassion restore faith in the Filipino spirit.

This is your hour. Let this narrative be not merely a call to awaken, but a solemn commitment―to the country that nurtures you, to the people who believe in you, and to the generations who will follow your example. Stand firm, for you are the heartbeat of a nation yearning to live with dignity once more. Speak right and shine!

Rise, Filipino youth, and let history remember that when your time came ―you stood unwavering, and the nation moved forward.