The Middle East is a bad place. Since WW1, and really, since the formation of Israel, there has not been a day where the area has been inflamed. But recently, it has gotten very bad. It is very morbid to talk about one of the greatest failures of human kindness in the context of the stock market, but it is my self-appointed job. So, is this Israel-Iran beef going to wreck the markets and global economy? The short answer is no. Before I go into the longer answer, I should explain my bias.

I am a progressive, white, middle-class male. I started in this Israel-Hamas/Palestine thing supporting Israel fully, hoping for a quick and forceful end to Hamas. However, as I have educated myself more about this topic, and as I have watched Israel consistently do the wrong thing, I have found myself drifting to the Palestinian side. And I do not know if that is an emotional reaction; if I am not strong enough to stay with Israel to the end, or if my moral conscience is guiding me correctly, but I think I have finally realized that the situation is not black and white at all. In fact, it is simultaneously everyone’s fault and nobody’s as well. A situation like this is never fun, and everyone comes out looking morally vanquished. Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate is a risky line to cross and an action with little honor.

I can tell you; this is why Batman does not kill people. The lines of good and evil become so blurred, morality so twisted, one cannot tell up from down, emaciated, crawling child from barbaric, raging warrior.

The long answer is that Iran is not there yet. Iran has long been positioning itself as the leader of the Middle East, and they have been waging a personal Cold War against Saudi Arabia, building up many proxy groups all over the Middle East. Iran wants nothing more than the destruction of Saudi Arabia because of religious differences, the destruction of Israel because of religious differences and a whole host of issues, and the destruction of America because we are both easy to demonize as the Western power, and because we did a lot of bad stuff in the Middle East.

            Iran supports this group called Hezbollah, which has attacked Israel many times. Israel and Hezbollah exchange missile fire all the time. They sort of go around and around, but both parties have stepped up attacks on the other after the October Sixth disaster. Israel decided to blow up the Iranian Consulate in Syria because the guy who organizes all these terrorist groups was chilling there with a bunch of his bros. Really, seriously bad look to attack a consulate/embassy. Iran had to do something, so they sent this drone attack. If Iran does nothing, they are admitting that Israel is stronger than they are to their people, to the world, and crucially, to those insurgent groups they fund. So, Iran launched a bunch of drones indiscriminately, and without any apparent target, at Israel. Iran expected all of these drones to be intercepted, in fact, I would imagine they were hoping these drones would be intercepted.

            Iran was just doing a show of force experiment, and I am sure, they were praying that Israel would shoot down these drones. This should have little impact on much of anything. Hopefully, Israel responds by blowing something up, and then, everyone returns to their corner for a few minutes. I do not think this event will be that big of a deal, and I would guess the market will have cooled off by Monday, but this is something you want to keep an eye on. If Israel pushes Iran much further, Iran will be forced by their pride to do something much more serious. And as someone who would be of age for the military, I really do not want this thing to escalate, so can people please just cool it for half a second?