The transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is speedier than we can handle. Even with high rates of vaccination, the virus can both overload health care systems and generate problematic variants. With both six million dead, and a continuing toll of some 8,000 more per day, COVID-19 is a far greater threat than Ebola. It is its own perfect storm, and we may be caught in its midst for some time yet.

Compared to the 2,981 lives lost on 9/11, in the response about two-and-a-half times as many American and coalition soldiers and contractors died (7,528). About twenty-four times as many Afghan and Pakistani civilians (71,254), and about twenty-six times as many (pro-coalition) Afghan and Pakistani security forces (76,814) were killed. In total, about 240,000 lives were lost. And the war failed.

Acknowledging the deep indifference lurking in the world is not cause for despair. If we steadfastly face and acknowledge it even as we battle against its manifestations, we realize that it is precisely our confrontation with reality that grounds our existence, something we must embrace if our life-journeys are to be deep and real rather than superficial and illusory.

Iranians have good reasons to tolerate their regime more than one the US and its allies would install, again. If it is argued that 1953 is ancient history, or that the US and its allies have changed, the recent failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Venezuela should teach us all that regime change is a reckless strategy that is almost certainly doomed to fail.