Forty-two years after this brilliant movie first gave people in the UK and beyond just a glimpse of the unfathomable consequences of nuclear war, watching the opening scenes is even more grim than it has been in the intervening decades, given just how eerily similar they seem to be to our current moment. With the US and Israel continuing to wage war on Iran, and their respective leaders having been repudiated in public polls and elections, the prospect of nuclear weapon use and a wider nuclear war is seemingly more real than ever before. But unlike in the 1980s, when the general public was well aware of what was at stake, having been frightened by Ronald Reagan’s saber-rattling and educated about the dangers of nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War, including through cultural interventions like popular films, today, when President Trump repeatedly threatens to annihilate Iran, the media and the general public seem to shrug and move on to other news of the day, checking perhaps on what Kim Kardashian had for breakfast.

“Now we’ll make a decision: Do we want to go further and just certify it, by certifying it meaning it will never happen again?” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I would rather not destroy the rest of the country, if possible, but maybe I’ll have to. And you’ll know soon enough.”

The threat came after the US president and Vice President JD Vance said that the war was a major factor in the midterm results, but Trump has continued to defend his decision to launch the war. Reuters cited two unnamed sources on Thursday who told the outlet that the president is still planning to restart the bombing campaign against Iran despite the acknowledgment.

“He is planning to bomb Iran. Don’t listen to what he’s saying. He held off because of the midterms. We asked him to hold off until the midterms,” one of the sources said.

Vance made the comments in a long post on X, where he said he spoke with a pollster whom he described as “one of the smartest people I know in politics.” He said that the pollster told him that “a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats” and asked those “who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team.”

The top four responses were:

“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance said. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”

“Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year, and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping,” Trump said on Fox & Friends. “We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel. Now we’ll help Israel if they need it.”

Trump’s comments are seen as a last-minute election maneuver, and he mentioned that US military aid to Israel is being used as a talking point by Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee in the Michigan Senate race. “Because they (Israel) don’t need it, and because why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it? It’s a bad, it’s a bad talking point,” he said.

Trump stressed that Israel could still buy weapons from the US and that he will “help Israel” if it needs. As things stand, even if the US cut off the $3.8 billion it provides Israel annually, the Israeli military would still be extremely reliant on US military support since it uses so much US-made military equipment, and the US provides significant intelligence support and political backing.

The State Department said it was sanctioning eight entities and two individuals, and declaring five ships as “blocked property.” It claimed that the targets are “associated with the Cuban regime’s oil shipping networks, Cuban elites, state-owned import and technical-support entities, and China-based suppliers of the regime’s military forces. ”

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also announced a new measure that “authorizes sanctions against any foreign person operating or having operated in the manufacturing, technology, electronics, and marine sectors of the Cuban economy,” a sweeping designation that could expose foreign companies to US sanctions for conducting business in major sectors of the Cuban economy.

The US significantly ramped up its decades-old embargo of Cuba following the US attack on Venezuela in January by cutting off Venezuelan oil shipments and also pressuring Mexico to halt oil exports to the island, causing daily major blackouts.

Ukraine’s European backers continue to insist on the idea that a peace deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war must involve the deployment of NATO troops to Ukrainian territory as a security guarantee despite Moscow repeatedly ruling it out.

The nations willing to send troops have formed a group known as the “coalition of the willing,” which is effectively led by the UK and France. The two countries are also leading the drills in Poland, which will involve 2,800 soldiers from the UK, France, and eight other European nations.

Russia and Ukraine are set to resume US-mediated negotiations in Abu Dhabi on November 10, but a deal is unlikely if Ukraine continues to insist on security guarantees that involve NATO troops on Ukrainian territory, which appears to be the case.

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