But should we be surprised by this chaos? As senior editor Jack Mirkinson writes, “The president is a congenital liar who loses a little more brain function with each passing day.” Perhaps there’s another reason we’re now at war, however: Israel has been longing for one. And “that has the potential to erode both the US-Israeli relationship and Israel’s already shaky standing with the American people,” Mirkinson notes. Lest we forget, this very relationship may have cost Kamala Harris the 2024 election, as James Zogby writes.

Regardless of the reason why our country attacked Iran, now we’re at war, and nobody knows what is next to come. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that many of the films on the Oscars radar are about societal collapse. Two of this year’s best international films, writes Vikram Murthi, The Secret Agent and Sirāt, “are primarily concerned with the texture of a fascist atmosphere.” These worlds are not our own, but the similarities might be eerily prescient.

-Alana Pockros

Associate Editor, The Nation

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