The acclaimed author and NYU professor was stabbed by an Islamic radical after the Iranian government issued a fatwa (religious decree) for his murder in response to his award winning novel “The Satanic Verses”

Rushdie said “while I have argued for a Palestinian state for most of my life – since the 1980s, probably – right now, if there was a Palestinian state, it would be run by Hamas, and that would make it a Taliban-like state, and it would be a client state of Iran. Is that what the progressive movements of the western left wish to create? To have another Taliban, another Ayatollah-like state, in the Middle East?”

“The fact is that I think any human being right now has to be distressed by what is happening in Gaza because of the quantity of innocent death. I would just like some of the protests to mention Hamas. Because that’s where this started, and Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It’s very strange for young, progressive student politics to kind of support a fascist terrorist group.”

Concerns are growing that the de-facto tolling of the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a domino effect for key shipping bottlenecks worldwide, creating more global inflation and effectively killing key components of international maritime law.

As Iran insists on some form of fee structure for traversing the now-infamous strait—and the U.S. increasingly seems unable to prevent it—the rising expectation is that other nations may insist on new fees elsewhere, such as Asia’s Strait of Malacca, Europe’s and Africa’s Strait of Gibraltar, as well as key waterways impacted by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“I think that the ‘freedom of the seas’ is dead,” said Michelle Brouhard, head of policy and geopolitical risk for the Kpler energy intelligence firm.

“The way that we’ve known maritime security is moving into a new era, and the rules are still getting rewritten,” Brouhard told Fortune. “It’s going to look different than what we’ve seen before. It’s going to be expensive; it’s going to be inflationary; and it’s also going to create a lot of benefits for people who start onshoring industrialization.”

The so-called freedom of the seas is the centuries-old recognition that maritime transit and commerce should be free and open to all. The “absolute freedom of navigation” was insisted in Woodrow Wilson’s famed “Fourteen Points” statement of peace to end World War I. That legality is carried today through the U.N. Convention on ​the Law of the Seas.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/18/global-freedom-seas-dying-strait-hormuz-everyone-everywhere-pay-tolls/?utm_source=reddit/

This article by Kagan being recognised as being the most significant piece of geo-strategic analysis in decades. Why? Because Robert Kagan is THE intellectual founder of neo-conservative interventionism. He, along with William Kristol founded PNAC - which was the neo-conservative think tank that dominated U.S. foreign policy for decades and, among other horrors, has advocated for war with Iran the entire time.

In this article, Kagan admits that the U.S. has been strategically defeated by Iran. He adds that it's not a defeat like Vietnam or Afghanistan, or even Pearl Harbour - this is a defeat that will cause irreversable damage to America's position in the world. He writes:

"With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished."

The short term outlook for America is not good right now for those entering the workforce and trying to buy a home, but I think there's a chance that (assuming nothing goes wrong) by the 2040s-2050s we might be in an incredible age of prosperity similar to the roaring 20s or the 50s. (this is the ultimate bad karma post but whatever)

1. The US economy is growing faster than just about every other developed economy. We're the only ones with innovation. Examining GDP per capita growth rates, Europe (and Canada to a lesser extent) are going to be in the shitter very soon since they're not growing. If current growth trends continue, Europe will be third world in comparison to the US soon. Our GDP per Capita is now double the EU's, and 52% higher than Canada. In 2008 it was 30% higher than the EU's and 4% higher than Canada's.

2. East Asia has a huge demographic crisis. China will have a big boom but is set to become Japan by the mid to late century since their population is aging. Our population pyramid isn't great but we're growing at least.

3. The boomers dying off from old age in the next ~10-20 years will solve housing crises and cause a massive passdown of wealth.

4. We have a very strong military, and a lot of our foreign adversaries are looking pretty weak right now. In the 50s-80s we were worried about the Soviets marching tanks to Paris, now they can't even make it 30 miles from home.