This year’s US election will shape the rest of the world – buckle up
Maybe my perspective is skewed, overconsumption of global events perhaps, but it feels to me unnervingly like we’re nearing a perfect storm right now.
Out of a chaotic global pandemic, humanity seems to have lurched into deeply uncertain times.
We tend to struggle to focus on more than one crisis at a time, but we are facing them on multiple fronts.
While headlines have focused on the Middle East these past few months, war in Ukraine has been grinding on, our climate continues to warm at alarming rates, AI has been coming on leaps and bounds, and behind all that, democratic structures we have taken for granted are being tested to their limits.
That’s mentioning just a few of the discombobulating challenges swirling around.
The pessimists (or are they realists?) have tended to attach an ‘existential’ tag to the most dominant crisis of the moment. And in 2023 the tag has been attached to all the challenges above.
That’s not to say similar storms haven’t been experienced before. But memories are short, experience doesn’t tend to cross generations and history has a knack of repeating itself.
Politics has caused and shaped these crises. And in turn they are now shaping the political map ahead.
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Is Trump barred from 2024 run?
Buckle up
As we head into 2024, a year when 75% of the world’s democracies will hold elections, it feels to me that it’s a year to buckle up.
My focus over the year ahead will be the United States where surely the world’s most important election will take place. I hesitate to make predictions a year out – so much could yet change.
There may well be an upset of some sort – a bombshell court verdict, an illness or something else entirely – but for now it looks set to be Biden versus Trump, again.
The fact that most Americans yearn for a young, fresh face – whether they be Democratic or Republican – but are probably stuck with two elderly men each flawed in their own way, suggests that the mechanics of American democracy are broken.
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‘I’m not the only one who can defeat Trump’
More than that though – the polls suggest there is, across America, an anti-Trump majority – all Democrats plus a proportion of Republicans. Yet, the same flawed mechanics still give Trump a path to the White House.
As I said, it would be foolish to make any predictions about Donald Trump’s chances.
But we can say this: as he tries to win again, with a powerful base of support, the structures of American democracy and the constitution itself are being put under almighty, perhaps unprecedented, stress.
The nine justices of the nation’s Supreme Court will be asked to wrestle with and untangle huge constitutional challenges. Their position demands that they do so objectively, putting aside political affiliations, but in a deeply divided nation, that will be subjected to huge scrutiny.
A Trumpian return
We can also predict, with the benefit of hindsight, what a second Trump term might look like.
Were he to win in November, expect a mountain of ‘executive orders’ on hour one after the inauguration, undoing all of Biden’s work.
The great disrupter would surround himself with his very closest allies; people who will not stand in his way.
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What will decide the US election?
Remember, during his last presidency, when he rattled the world, a cast of characters did stand in his way.
The people he appointed – among them HR McMaster, Bill Barr, John Bolton and his own Vice-President Mike Pence – provided the internal checks and balances. They blocked his most radical ideas from becoming a reality.
This time, should he find himself back in the White House, he will be Trump the avenger; ‘a dictator for one day’, in his own words. His team will be rock-solid loyalists.
We know what he would be like because he spells it out at every rally.
Expect the return of the 2016-era policies but this time with the chances of completion much higher.
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Trump: ‘We’re close to being in WW3’
His focus would be America-first to the delight of many Americans who wonder why their country busies itself with faraway wars like Ukraine, but to the horror of globalists who still believe in the merits of American leadership.
The western alliance would be tested once again, but this time would Donald Trump follow through on threats like leaving the NATO alliance?
Those close to him suggest it may just be a threat to get other member nations to pay more again. They point out that it worked before, to an extent.
How would a resurrection of his Abraham Accords play out? Stewarding the reset between Israel and some gulf Arab nations was, he’d say, his landmark foreign policy achievement.
Could ‘the disrupter’, whose foreign policy lieutenants will not be establishment folk, cast a masterstroke even in wake of the Middle East crisis right now?
What about Ukraine? He says he would find peace in 24 hours. But would that require a capitulation to Putin, ceding him Ukrainian land in the east?
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Putin: Trump is being ‘persecuted’
Of course, all of this talk of ‘Trump 2.0’ is getting way ahead of many hugely uncertain months for America.
But the issues above – Ukraine, the Middle East, America’s place in the world – will be directly impacted as America chooses its direction this coming year.
Global events shaped by small-town America
In real-time, we will watch US geo-political policy decisions being framed by domestic American politics over the next 11 months.
Some issues will become paralysed with no incentive for momentum. On other issues, like perhaps Ukraine, there will be great incentive.
Team Biden will want to find a resolution for the Ukraine war. There is chatter already in Washington of a shift in White House policy – pressure on Ukraine to find a settlement with Russia.
Such is the power of America, still, that the direction of global events will be driven by issues tangible to American voters; issues much closer to home.
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Ukraine’s war ‘forgotten’ in US
The US economy is booming but it’s not trickling down to voters who feel that times are tough. Migration is seemingly out of control. Inner city drug and crime epidemics are agitating many voters. Culture wars are driving wedges deep into American society.
America’s shifting global influence, clear already, is wholly dependent on its domestic political twists. All politics is local.
Of one thing we can be sure: this US election is less of a fork in the road, more of a T-junction – two entirely different directions.
US President Donald Trump says he has yet to decide whether the US will join Israel militarily in its campaign against Iran.
Asked whether the US was getting closer to striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Mr Trump said: “I may do it. I may not do it.”
Speaking outside the White House on Wednesday, he added: “Nobody knows what I’m going to do…Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate.
“And I said, ‘why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?'”
Mr Trump said Iran had reached out to Washington, a claim Tehran denied, with Iran’s mission to the UN responding: “No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not surrender and warned “any US military intervention will undoubtedly cause irreparable damage” to US-Iranian relations.
Read more:
Why did Israel attack Iran?
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The families caught up in Iran-Israel attacks
Strikes continue
Hundreds have reportedly died since Iran and Israel began exchanging strikes last Friday, when Israel launched an air assault after saying it had concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon, a claim Tehran denies.
Israel launched three waves of aerial attacks on Iran in the last 24 hours, military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin has said.
Israel deployed dozens of warplanes to strike over 60 targets in Tehran and western Iran, including missile launchers and missile-production sites, he said.
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Can Iran’s leadership be toppled?
“The aim of the operation is to eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel, significantly damage Iran’s nuclear programme in all its components, and severely impact its missile array,” he said.
Early on Thursday Israel issued an evacuation warning to residents of the Iranian Arak and Khandab regions where Iran has heavy water reactor facilities. Heavy water is important in controlling chain reactions in the production of weapons grade plutonium.
Meanwhile Iran says it has arrested 18 people it describes as “enemy agents” who it says were building drones for the Israelis in the northern city of Mashhad.
Iran also launched small barrages of missiles at Israel on Wednesday with no reports of casualties. Israel has now eased some restrictions for its civilians.
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Read more:
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MAGA civil war breaks out over Trump’s potential decision to join conflict with Iran
The US is working to evacuate its citizens from Israel by arranging flights and cruise ship departures, the US ambassador to the country has said.
In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer chaired a COBRA emergency meeting on the situation in the Middle East, with a Downing Street spokesperson saying: “Ministers were updated on efforts to support British nationals in region and protect regional security, as well as ongoing diplomatic efforts”.
A senior US senator who supports Donald Trump has told Sky News why he believes the US would be right to intervene in Iran.
Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas who ran against Mr Trump in 2016 but now backs him, told US correspondent David Blevins that Iran is an “acute threat to the national security of the US”.
He went on to claim that because “Iran is also building ICBMs (intercontinental ballistc missiles)” and “You don’t need an ICBM to go to Israel”, it indicated Iran’s intention “to take a nuclear weapon to the United States to murder Americans”.
“Nobody is talking about invading Iran,” Mr Cruz added. “We’re not going to see boots on the ground.”
Middle East latest: Trump says he ‘may or may not’ strike Iran
It comes after the US president said he “may do it, I may not do it” when asked if he would launch a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
So far, Israel has been attacking Iran alone since it ramped up its military action last Friday, launching strikes against what it says are Tehran’s facilities for developing a nuclear weapon and also destroying its air defences.
Iran has always denied seeking the ability to make a nuclear weapon from its uranium enrichment programme.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Blevins’s fellow US correspondent Mark Stone says that while figures like Mr Cruz back military action, “a whole host of other figures are saying ‘do not do it'”.
“The social media space is absolutely full of MAGA [Make America Great Again] figures from the right… saying ‘we absolutely must not go into Iran’.”
If the US were to decide to take military action against Iran, it could have implications for the UK, as America may ask to station refuelling aircraft at a British base in Cyprus and B-2 bombers, which could carry the bunker buster bombs required to attack Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, could launch from the British base of Diego Garcia.
Mr Cruz told Sky News that while many of Mr Trump’s support base did not want to see the US involve itself in another war, “the overwhelming majority of Americans, nearly 80%, support President Trump, and support President Trump defending us against an Iranian nuclear weapon.”
America is deploying more fighter planes to the Middle East in a “demonstration of force” as tensions escalate and speculation about a possible US strike on Iran continues.
Pictures and flight tracking data show F-35 jets and tanker aircraft being moved towards the region, as well as the tasking of an aircraft carrier, providing options in case President Donald Trump decides to intervene in the conflict.
But one particular aircraft that has not been seen just yet – the B-2 stealth bomber – could reveal the most about America’s intentions towards Iran…
Why is America moving more aircraft to the Middle East?
“It’s giving them options,” says military analyst Michael Clarke. “They have got four types of aircraft – including fighters, interceptors and fighter-bombers – all in the right region.”
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Clarke: What could US involvement look like as Iran attacks ease
The new arrivals can be spread around several existing military bases that the US has in the region in Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“More is better and also it’s a demonstration of force,” Prof Clarke added. “There’s a political element behind it, to show the Iranians what they can do, but also to other allies.
“The Americans want to be taken seriously in all of this.”
A Boeing KC-46A Pegasus, primarily used for aerial refueling, is seen on tracking in the eastern Mediterranean. Pic: Flightradar24
Analysis: What aircraft have moved to the region?
Sky News analysis of flight-tracking data shows more than 30 US military planes have been active over parts of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea over the past three days.
These include planes used for reconnaissance, refuelling in mid-air as well as carrying cargo.
Map of US military bases in the Middle East
An air-traffic control recording from the US suggests F-22 Raptors are being sent across the Atlantic. Two refuelling tankers are visible on flight tracking data leaving the US east coast, likely escorting the stealth fighter jets.
In images taken by photographer Glenn Lockett in Suffolk, three US air tankers were seen flying over England, each accompanied by four F-35 jets.
F-35s are one of the most advanced warplanes in the world, known for their ability to evade enemy radar.
A US air tanker seen flying over England, accompanied by F-35 jets. Credit: Instagram/g.lockaviation
Flight tracking data shows that the tankers travelled to the Mediterranean and then returned to the UK.
Most of the US military planes tracked by Sky News regularly turn off their locations and final destinations, according to the data from Flightradar24.
Some of the planes moved from the US to Europe, while others appeared to move closer to the Middle East. At least five of the US military aircraft landed at Chania Airport on the Greek island of Crete.
An air-traffic control recording from the US also suggests F-22 Raptors are being sent across the Atlantic. Two refuelling tankers are visible on flight tracking data leaving the US east coast, likely escorting the stealth fighter jets.
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US insists deployments are defensive
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth stressed that the deployment of more aircraft was defensive in nature, as Washington looks to safeguard its forces in the region.
Fighter aircraft have been used to shoot down drones and projectiles in the past.
America already has a substantial force in the Middle East, with nearly 40,000 troops as well as air defence systems, aircraft and warships.
But as the conflict between Israel and Iran carries on – and President Trump continues to make threats against Tehran – it’s possible that multiple options could be on the table for intervention.
B-2 bombers – the ones to watch?
Asked what he’s looking out for as speculation about whether the US will intervene directly continues, Prof Clarke pointed to one particular aircraft that hasn’t been seen moving towards the region yet: The B-2 stealth bomber.
Known for its iconic triangle shape and ability to penetrate deep air defences undetected, the B-2 has lesser-known capability that could be crucial for any action over Iran: it can carry ‘bunker buster’ bombs.
So far Israel has not been able to damage Iran’s secretive Fordow uranium enrichment plant, which is buried deep beneath a mountain.
A B-2 stealth bomber flies over Washington DC during a 4 July celebration. File pic: AP
The only bomb believed to be powerful enough to penetrate the facility is America’s GBU-57, a 14-ton bomb that is so heavy it can only be launched from the US fleet of heavy bomber aircraft.
Any movement of B-2 bombers to the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean could “indicate the likelihood that the Americans are going to use bunker busters in Iran,” Prof Clarke says.
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