Welcome to Friday, June 20, 2025 and National Kougin Amann Day, celebrating a cake that isn’t Middle Eastern but French. Wikipedia describes it as
. . . . a sweet, round Breton laminated dough pastry, originally made with bread dough (nowadays sometimes viennoiserie dough), containing layers of butter and incorporated sugar, similar in fashion to puff pastry albeit with fewer layers. It is slowly baked until the sugar caramelizes and the butter (in fact the steam from the water in the butter) expands the dough, resulting in its layered structure.
And it’s also THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER, which officially begins at 10:42 p.m. tonight EDT (I’ll be asleep). You will get more daylight today than any other day of the year. Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music!
Here’s a photo of an individual kougin amann. I’ve never had this pastry but it sounds excellent:
I am off early Sunday to the Heterodox Academy Meetings in NYC (Brooklyn), and so posting will be light until I am back in harness on Friday (though just for a short while as I leave about a week later for a three-week trip to the Arctic). Bear with me; I’ll do my best, and of course will do Hili dialogues if Andrzej is able to send some.
It’s also American Eagle Day, National Ice Cream Soda Day, Plain Yogurt Day, Anne and Samantha Day (look it up), National Vanilla Milkshake Day, World Refugee Day, National Smoothie Day, World Humanist Day, and Ugliest Dog Day.
Here’s “Wild Thang,” winner of ther 2024 Petaluma’s World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. He’s not that ugly!
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 20 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
^There are two NYT articles on the war: “Europe pushes for de-escalation after nearly 1 week of war” and “An Islamic Republic with its back against the wall” (archived here and here, respectively). From the first one:
European officials are making a diplomatic push to de-escalate the conflict between Israel and Iran after nearly a week of deadly fighting, even as Israel’s defense minister warned on Thursday that the country’s military would intensify its strikes on “strategic targets” in Iran.
After days of back-channel discussions, the Europeans, who have been effectively sidelined since the war started, are now trying to exert what limited leverage they have as weapons suppliers or potential peacemakers to try to end the war.
At talks in Geneva on Friday, they are expected to urge the Iranians to return to negotiations, even as President Trump mulls the possibility of American military action against Iran. The meeting would be the first formal gathering between Iranian and Western officials since Israel began attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The diplomatic efforts came as the Israeli military launched a wave of strikes on Thursday against targets in Iran, including a nuclear complex. Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said the country would step up its attacks on Iran to “remove the threats to the state of Israel,” after a barrage of Iranian missiles hit several locations, including a major hospital complex in southern Israel.
Everyone would like peace, but it appears that many Europeans also wouldn’t mind a nuclear-armed Iran. “Negotiations” with Iran.
From the second:
Beneath Israel’s bombs lies an unpopular and repressive Iranian regime that has spent billions of dollars on a nuclear program and on projecting the Islamic Revolution through armed regional proxies, while presiding over a domestic economic disaster and stifling paralysis.
An 86-year-old autocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rules this restive nation, as he has for 36 years, in his role as guardian of the revolution, a conservative calling at which he has proved adept. The supreme leader is no gambler. But his system, remote from a youthful and aspirational society, looks sclerotic to many, and he is now up against the wall.
. . .“The Islamic Republic is a rotten tooth waiting to be plucked, like the Soviet Union in its latter years,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “Khamenei is in the most difficult situation he has ever faced.”
. . . . . Ayatollah Khamenei remains defiant. He responded on Wednesday to President Trump’s threat to his life and call for “unconditional surrender” by saying that “Iran stands firm in the face of imposed war, just as it will stand firm against imposed peace, and it will not yield to any imposition.”
But the insurrection never delivered the freedom it had promised. Frustration, whether over hijabs imposed on women with no desire to wear them or over chronic and crippling mismanagement, grew.
Iran’s gross domestic product, or total output, has fallen 45 percent since 2012, and many people are desperate. Crippling international sanctions over the nuclear program contributed to this downward spiral, but so did corruption, a bungled privatization program and bloated state companies. Iran did reach a nuclear agreement with the United States in the last years of the Obama administration, but Mr. Trump shredded it in his first term.
“The one message the Iranian people wants to get across is that having done all this and wreaked this kind of havoc, make sure the end of this is that the horrendous regime is gone,” said an Iranian businessman based in the United Arab Emirates, who requested anonymity because of the Islamic Republic’s habit of imprisoning its opponents.
. . .One thing is certain: If the United States does get involved in the war, it will never be forgotten in Tehran. American intervention will become part of a deep American-Iranian psychosis. Its elements already include an anti-democratic coup in Iran by American agents, an anti-Western Iranian theocratic revolution, the U.S. hostage crisis from 1979 to 1981, the American shooting down in 1988 of Iran Air flight 655 with 290 people aboard, and an ideological war that has persisted since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
That is a lot of bitter history, but one of history’s lessons is that nightmares do end. Almost nobody predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. “The Islamic Republic is a zombie regime,” Mr. Sadjadpour said. “It’s fed off and spread disorder for a long time, but it’s terminally ill even if it’s still standing.”
Them’s bold words, but we can hope they’re true. But if the Iranian people want the regime gone, as I think they do, why on Earth does Europe want the theocracy to stay—and with nukes?
*As the “progressive” MSM continues to criticize Israel for attacking Iran, Bret Stephens, always sensible on Middle Eastern Wars, proposes in the NYT “An Iranian Strategy for Trump” (archived here).
If the U.S. does attack, the most obvious target will be the Fordo nuclear site, a deeply buried facility where Iran enriches uranium and which, by most reports, can be knocked out only by a 15-ton bomb known as a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP. Less well known but surely on the U.S. target list is a new, still unfinished subterranean facility south of Iran’s main (and now largely destroyed) enrichment plant at Natanz. American pilots would also almost certainly join their Israeli counterparts in attacking Iranian ballistic missile launchers and bases.
And then what? Nobody doubts the U.S. can do a lot of damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, at least in the short term. What comes afterward is harder to predict.
. . . I’m with the proponents. A nuclear-armed Iran, fielding missiles of ever-growing reach, is both an unacceptable threat to U.S. security and a consequential failure of U.S. deterrence. After years of Iran’s prevarications, which led even the Biden administration to give up on diplomacy, to say nothing of Iran’s cheating on its legal commitments — detailed last month in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency — the world had run out of plausible nonmilitary options to prevent the regime from going nuclear.
But that might not happen. Here’s Stephens’s solution:
Here, then, is what Trump should do: First, drop bunker busters on Fordo and other hardened nuclear sites to ensure that Iran has no fast route to a bomb. That would need to be followed up by dropping a diplomatic bunker buster on Tehran — the proverbial offer Iran can’t refuse.
It would look like this. As an inducement, the United States could offer immediate relief from most economic sanctions, along with a pledge that neither the United States nor Israel would attack Iran’s critical energy infrastructure and other economic assets. The United States could also persuade Israel to end its bombing campaign.
The price? The regime would have to agree to two things: First, permanent, verifiable, comprehensive and immediate denuclearization, including a system of intrusive inspections and an end to its enrichment programs. Second, an end to its financial and military support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other foreign proxies. Trump could also threaten to lease stealth bombers and MOPs to Israel if Iran refuses the terms of the deal.
. . . Donald Trump wants to go down in history both as a peacemaker and as the man who stopped Iran from getting a bomb. And Khamenei does notwant to go down in history as his regime’s last ruler. There’s a big, beautiful deal to be struck here. For all sides.
There’s one small problem with Stephens’s fix: the theocracy remains. There’s nothing in his solution about repression of the people, especially women. What we’d have would be a defanged theocracy that still denies women the opportunities they deserve, bans alcohol and music, and is generally repressive. How could Stephens have forgotten about that?
*The WSJ reports that Trump privately approved plans to attack Iran, but is waiting to see if Iran “surrenders unconditionally.”
In the Middle East, Israel and Iran continued to exchange fire as the conflict entered a seventh day. An Israeli hospital was hit by an Iranian missile, while Israel said it struck 100 targets in Iran, including the heavy-water reactor in Arak and a site in Natanz that it said was being used for nuclear-weapons development.
Meanwhile, European foreign ministers are slated to meet with Iranian officials in Geneva on Friday to press them to de-escalate and to offer a rollback of Iran’s nuclear activities.
President Trump told senior aides late Tuesday that he approved of attack plans for Iran, but was holding off to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program, people familiar with the deliberations said.
Asked if he had decided whether to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said, “I may do it, I may not do it.” And he repeated his insistence on Iran’s unconditional surrender: “The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week.”
The U.S. has built up military forces in the region in recent days. A third U.S. Navy destroyer entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea and a second U.S. carrier strike group is heading toward the Arabian Sea. While the Pentagon said the buildup is defensive, it better positions the U.S. should Trump decide to join Israeli attacks on Iran. It could also be a tactic to pressure Iran to capitulate or make concessions.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country wouldn’t surrender and warned any U.S. military intervention would bring irreparable consequences.
He should just do it, but under a modified version of Stephens’s plans, which, to me, would require Khameni give up power and the country abandons theocracy. That won’t happen. Trump says he’ll decide whether the U.S. will help Israel attack Iran within two weeks.
*At the Free Press, Niall Ferguson and Yoav Gallant (the latter Israel’s Defense Minister between 2022 and 2024), don’t pull any punches with their Free Press piece, “Israel has done most of the job. Only Trump can finish it.”
Opponents of U.S. military action tell a simplified story of past interventions—in Vietnam, most obviously, but some also cite Iraq and Afghanistan—that led to “forever wars.” But isolationists have trouble arguing that the United States should never intervene abroad. Would the Cold War have gone better if Harry Truman had abandoned South Korea to Stalin’s proxies in 1950? Would the Middle East have benefited if Kuwait had been left in Saddam Hussein’s hands in 1991? Would the Balkans be stabler today if Bill Clinton had not belatedly acted to save Bosnia and then Kosovo from Slobodan Milošević’s aggression?
None of these analogies is really applicable anyway, because the United States today is not being asked to send soldiers to invade or occupy Iran. The action President Trump must decide upon is clearly defined and limited in its duration and scale, since much of the work of defeating Iran has already been done by Israel.
The past six days have marked a strategic inflection point. After decades of preparation, Israel has acted: striking critical nuclear sites, dismantling missile production lines, and eliminating senior figures in Iran’s military and Revolutionary Guard Corps. These operations have already set Iran’s program back by years.
. . . . Only one air force has the power to finish off [the nuclear enrichment facility of] Fordow. The United States designed and built the GBU 57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) precisely for such a task. The MOP is a 30,000-pound, 20-foot-long weapon. Its warhead contains 5,300 pounds of explosives. Cased in a hard steel alloy, the weapon is dropped from high altitude, accelerates to Mach 2 or 3, punches into the target, and rips through layers of protection before detonating. Three to eight MOPs would suffice to render Fordow defunct.
The MOP is designed for American B-2 Spirits, all of which are based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Each B-2 can carry two MOPs, meaning a strike wave of two to six B-2s delivering four to 12 MOPs would get the job done.
Fordow is 6,800 miles away from Missouri, so the B-2s would need to refuel at least twice and potentially five times. The United States has moved exactly the requisite number of tankers from North American bases to Europe.
You already know what Ferguson and Gallant want:
A nuclear-armed Iran would pose more than a threat to the Israeli people and their state. Its missiles could reach Gulf capitals and Europe. Those missiles could allow Iran to sponsor terror and wage conventional war with impunity. The result would be a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. By destroying Fordow, President Trump would create a new equilibrium in the Middle East and reestablish American leadership. The strike would focus solely on eliminating Iran’s nuclear arms program, but it should be accompanied by a clear message: If Iran attempts to target the United States or its Gulf allies, it will risk the elimination of its regime.
. . . . Israel has moved and continues to move with determination and dispatch. The support of allies, first and foremost the United States, has been crucial. Now, with a single exertion of its unmatched military strength, the United States can shorten the war, prevent wider escalation, and end the principal threat to Middle Eastern stability. It can also send a signal to those other authoritarian powers who have been Iran’s enablers that American deterrence is back.
This is a rare moment when strategic alignment and operational momentum converge. It must not be missed.
I tend to agree, but there should be no theocracy remaining.
*More signs that even if the ideology of DEI is still with us, and even pervasive, names are being changed to protect the guilty, as with the American Mathematical Society. This is the full post:
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) Committee on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (CoEDI) has changed its name to the AMS Committee on Engagement, Participation, and Advancement (CEPA).
“To better represent the voices and experiences and the evolving needs of our community, we are renaming our committee efforts to more clearly reflect our goals,” the committee said. “This new name underscores the outcomes we seek: to engage broadly, promote full participation, and support the success of all mathematicians.”
“While change often brings challenges, our commitment remains strong: to cultivate a culture where everyone feels seen, valued, and empowered,” the committee said.
“We believe that Engagement, Participation, and Advancement are not isolated initiatives, but shared responsibilities at the core of all we do.”
What seems bogus is the explanation. I’m betting that the DEI stuff that the committee does will remain the same, and that they’ve just gussied up its name to avoid Trumpian blackmail. I’m wondering if anything has really changed.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, today’s dialogue is very sad:
Andrzej: We are left alone Hili.
Hili: I understand this already and I’m trying to accept the fact that cannot be accepted.
In Polish:
A: Zostaliśmy sami Hili.
Hili: Rozumiem to już i próbuję zaakceptować fakt, którego nie da się zaakceptować.
*******************
From Now That’s Wild:
From Jesus of the Day:
From Things With Faces: A dog’s ear resembling a gnome:
Masih agrees:
Force Ali Khamenei and his regime to give up entirely.
It’s time for democratic nations to act with pressure.
Stand with the people or stand with their oppressors.
There is only one solution to end this war.
Please, listen to my message in this video.https://t.co/Ul4grfDAns pic.twitter.com/VgEkBNWHaY— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 17, 2025
Here is the 5½-minute video:
From Pinkah: I didn’t know about this food-and-philosophy show, but it sounds great. Has anyone seen it? I’ve put the trailer below the tweet.
Last Meal (Season 1): Tom Nash asks various thinkers to identify what they would want as their last meal, and cooks it for them while exploring life and mortality. https://t.co/hmbGZxYm9P via @YouTube
— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) June 19, 2025
From Malcolm: duck vs. cat. Duck wins! Duck wins!
Fighting duck vs cat 😂 pic.twitter.com/Rx9a1z07rU
— Beauty Of Nature 🌳 (@ShouldHaveAnima) June 4, 2025
From Barry; a lioness united with her former staff:
A 7-year-old lioness reunites with the man who raised her after she was abandoned as a cub 🦁❤️ He slept beside her outside so she'd grow up as naturally as possible. Now she tackles him with love-hugs, face rubs, pure joy-until they collapse in a pile of trust. 🫶 #WildBond #HeartmeltingNature
One I posted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
This Polish man lived but 16 days after arriving at Auschwitz.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T09:35:44.508Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. He says of this one, “The loons have their finger on The Bomb!”:
Trump just shared this alarming text from Israeli Ambassador Mike Huckabee, effusively praising him while telling him that no president has been in his position "since Truman in 1945" (when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Japan) & that he "will hear a voice from heaven" telling him what to do.
— Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T14:34:28.012Z
I’m not sure whether the work on toes was a revolution, and the “guinea pig eraser” story is, to the best of my knowledge, apocryphal. But everybody studying evolution needs to know about Wright’s work. I have to say, though, that what he considered his greatest feat: his “shifting balance theory of evolution”, is in my view deeply misguided. Some colleagues and I criticized it severely, and I don’t think it has much traction these days.
Anyone who has taken population genetics knows Sewall Wright, the Gregor Mendel of animal genetics.This article tells the story of how his studies on guinea pig toes led to the conceptual framework for modern evolutionary theory.(also the time he tried to erase a chalkboard with a guinea pig)
— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T12:41:24.898Z
Meanwhile, PZ Myers has an article up saying he’s “pro-Iran”, which is to say, he’s pro-fascist.
A lot of white European (or European-origin) people nowadays are in favour of anything that isn’t white and European. This even extends to wanting sufficient third-world immigration into Europe to make whites a minority. It’s unfathomable. Self-criticism is one thing, but self-hatred takes it way too far.
Iranians are white, though. And as Persians they are Euro-adjacent.
And Farsi is an Indo-European language, unlike, e.g., Hebrew. That sort of immaterial fact would be exploited by the European pro-Islamic Republic thugs were it to work in their imagined favor instead of against it. (Cf. Jew haters who deny being anti-Semites because they have nothing against Arabs.)
Not surprised. He seems to be on my wrong side every time.
I don’t think Stephens forgot the theocracy. It is hard, though, to get a regime to negotiate itself out of existence. Remember that the two most successful examples of regime change, Germany and Japan, required the overwhelming military defeat of those nations (and one could argue that since the Emperor remained in place, Japan wasn’t truly regime change). If Trump were to demand regime change, he’d put himself in the position of having to back down on that demand or commit to war on the ground. War on the ground is quite clearly something that neither Trump nor the nation want. One of the things that Trump has rejected most clearly is the neo-con experiments in regime change that went on over the first twenty or so years of this century.
I think you’re right. It seems counterproductive to demand that regime change and abandoning theocracy be on the list of American demands, then add, “That won’t happen.” (I’m not sure if “that” refers to regime change or American demand for it.)
As a foreigner, I would feel safe enough in a world where Iran does not have nuclear weapons and never will have them. Donald Trump would earn my gratitude and his place in the history books if he helps make that happen. Iran’s women, dancers, homosexuals, and alcohol aficionados will have to do the rest of the job themselves, internally. Not really my concern because it’s not in my, “Can I do something about this?” bucket and I suspect it’s not in America’s CIDSAT bucket, either.
I “confide” (as Admiral Nelson wanted to signal at Trafalgar but a short form of “expect” was ready-made up in the flag locker and the first French cannonballs were starting to splash around his ships) that President Trump will work to achieve the achievable. He doesn’t want to have to garrison a bitterly resentful Iran nursing old grievances the way the Allied Powers did in Germany and Japan to keep order and run the drinking water during the regime transition….and, by the way, keep the Red Army out.
The other thing to keep in mind is that, assuming President Trump does bomb Iran, it is America starting this war. Iran itself has not attacked America. Yes it would be a justified use of violence — ideally Congress would declare war first after an ultimatum to disarm — but the President has to be moderate in his war aims to keep to the causus belli. If Iran had attacked America, then total destruction of Iran would be a justifiable war aim.
” Iran itself has not attacked America”
I don’t think that is strictly true.
Iran has been found guilty in a court of law of being behind the attack of the US Marines barracks in Lebanon in 1983 leading to “deadliest single-day loss for the US Marine Corps since World War II”.
Iran, or its proxies, have carried out hundreds of attacks on US military personnel and assets just over the past three years.
The Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, in 1979 endorsed and supported the attack on the US Embassy in Tehran where more than 50 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. Any American Embassy is considered American soil.
Iran directed various proxies to assassinate American citizens and officials in the United States itself on multiple occasions. Targets included Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, and Donald Bolton.
I would imagine that any of these cases could ostensibly be judged an attack on America.
Yes, I agree. And those attacks could have been cited during contemporaneous debates in Congress over whether declaring war was the appropriate response. But they weren’t. So in making a claim now that war (or war-like activity) is justified, my advice, purely as a friendly foreigner, would be for the U.S. to stick to the more limited goal of removing the nuclear threat. Even that may be a tall order. Iranian concrete is good stuff.
If the regime does collapse as a result, the U.S. can just walk away, pass by on the other side. Unintended consequence, not your problem either to make the omelette or to put the eggs back into their shells. Limited goals mean limited obligations. Again as a foreigner, I wouldn’t knock you for not sticking around.
Regime changes that are imposed by force from the outside rarely work in this region. Think about Iraq and Afghanistan. Heck, think about Iran, where we forced out their elected leader and replaced him with the corrupt Shah. The imposition of the Shah was what sparked the Islamic takeover of that country, and it is why we are here today discussing this.
The totalitarian states of the former Soviet Union did not fall and turn democratic by war but by mostly peaceful means. That is the blueprint for how we should have been dealing with Iran.
Even during the Cuban missile crisis, which involved nuclear weapons, we did not start bombing. Apparently even these complex and difficultthings can be solved by peaceful means, and recent history shows that those solutions are more likely to be permanent than our offensive wars.
We did not start bombing in the Cuban Missile Crisis because the Soviets had a massive nuclear arsenal. Another difference is that in the ongoing conflicts with Iran’s lunatic theocrats the latter do not want peace, as evidenced by their constant “Death to Israel! Death to America!” rhetoric. The situation is thus analogous to the Nazi and Japanese governments in WW2, where only a total and comprehensive defeat ended the war. Plus in the case of Iran, the theocratic fascist regime is highly unpopular among the people and ripe for regime change from within. We will see in any case.
Lou, comments you wrote yesterday and before have been echoing in my head. I have been busy and haven’t made it through today’s (Friday’s) Hili Dialogue let alone the comments. However, I specifically looked for your name under “recent comments” because I’m rethinking my very uncharacteristically hawkish views and comments with respect to Israeli (recent and current) actions and those of the US (potential future ones, especially). I’m really not sure what I think today. The mullahs and those that back them up militarily are everything we’ve said they are. Evil, awful, oppressive to their citizens and tremendous trouble makers in the region with no regard for human welfare or life whether inside or outside their borders. BUT, who will take their place if we or the Israelis take them out? What will become of whatever holds that country together now? Are we (Israel and the US) opening a Pandora’s box? How much more disruption can any of us (I’m talking about the world as a whole now) tolerate? It won’t be so cut and dry/neat and tidy as just taking out the nukes and running. There’s a lot to think about (says this little powerless nobody in Tucson). I’m glad you’ve had the courage to go against popular opinion on WEIT. I hope I have the energy to read through today’s postings here today.
Debi, I am really glad to know that my comments were thought-provoking. I think history shows that threats of existential annihilation force countries to develop nukes. It’s why Israel (probably) has nukes, it is why North Korea has nukes, why Pakistan has nukes, and historically why Russia felt the need to rapidly develop/steal nuclear technology, and it is why Iran is trying to get nukes.
I don’t think aggressive offensive military action is the way to stop nuclear proliferation. On the contrary it will spark more nuclear proliferation.
“The country’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said he had ordered the Israeli military to increase its attacks on Iranian government targets to “destabilize the regime,” deter it from firing at Israel and displace the population of Tehran.”
Displace the population of Tehran? That’s an incredible military objective.
It seems that the Ayatollah et ux have investigated the possibility of joining Assad in exile, in Russia.
I see that its some of the senior officials who are seeking an exit, contingent on probable collapse of the regime https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/cracks-at-the-top-is-irans-inner-circle-trying-to-flee/
“Arctic). Bear with me”
An arctic bear is with you?!
RUN!
😁
What are the odds that an Iranian sleeper cell will carry out a terrorist attack here in the U.S. if we attack Iran?
I have wondered that. More specifically, perhaps attacks on some of our embassies here and there.
That’s why when a country goes to war it rounds up all the nationals of its enemy and interns them to keep a close eye on them. Two generations later everyone will call it racist and fulsome apologies will issue forth.
The Hili picture and comment brought tears to my eyes. There is a difficult journey ahead. Sending my support!
I feel the same way but so happy to see a picture of Hili and hear from Andrzej.
Thank you Andrzej for the dialogue.
If we could just Like comments, as most everywhere else but WordPress, both of yours would have many.
And also ‘subscribe’ to Comments would be great. AI Summary: To allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress, you can use a plugin like Subscribe to Comments Reloaded or Lightweight Subscribe To Comments. These plugins add a checkbox to the comment form, allowing users to opt-in to email notifications for new comments on that post. Alternatively, some newsletter plugins like MailPoet or Newsletter offer options to include a subscription checkbox within the comment form or on the user registration form
100% agree.
There isn’t really a ‘European’ voice concerning Israel/Iran.
The French are fine with military adventurism, they just really hate Israel.
The Spanish just hate Israel.
And the Scandinavians, Dutch and Germans tend to be handwringing retards who believe that peace will be upon us if we just feel bad about war enough and really, REALLY wish for it, which is the basic principle that informs their foreign policy. All we have ti figure out is who bullied poor widdle dictators and terrorists as kids, then we can fix it all in a jiffy, like in a particularly saccharine saturday morning cartoon.
Excellent summary Denial. Excellent.
D.A.
NYC
What about us Brits? 😀
Muslim countries tend to oppose Israel, haven’t you heard?
A local bakery features kouign ammans. They’re great! My advice is to try one if you get the chance.
It’s funny. But when you talk of when and why the USA should and shouldn’t get involved in military affairs overseas it reminds me of a scene in the film “Team America: World Police” when the hero Gary makes a speech about ****’s, *****’s and *******’s and how they (like the USA) were reckless, arrogant, stupid ****’s.
I do apologize for the PG-13 content but somehow how you summed up Korea, Kuwait and Serbia to Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq made me think about it.
I wonder after Mike Huckabee sent that txt his mouth tasted “a bit nutty”. 😁
Austin Powers
If there were a Brownest Nose Contest, the bookies’ odds-on favourite would surely be The Huck.
If I remember correctly, Huckabee believes that there must be an Apocalypse to bring Jesus back to earth. In other words, he is the Christian version of the crazy Islamists. I think this adds important context to his message to Trump. I am very worried about how this is going to end.
You’re right. If The Huck is a sincere true-believer, and his enthusiastic brown-nosing is for a holy purpose¹, then things are worse than I imagined. Again.
. . . . .
¹ Since being a fool for the sake of Christ is considered righteous then maybe being a brown-noser is too: It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it?
I’m not sure the bunker busters and US assistance is vital. Helpful sure, but possibly not worth the agro given Iran’s (faulty) view of us.
I trust Israel has delayed any nukes almost already and soon will retard Iran’s progress enough to buy time. Which is what is really needed – wait the situation out while disarming the joints of their nuke program and missile force.
IMHO there is NO WAY de-fundamentalising Iran from its mullahs is possible. Sorry, PCC(E). Bad news for Iran’s women, gays and tipplers.
Remember a few things – From history: The 50s Mosaddeq coup wasn’t as much American influenced as our current history books suggest. Mossy was a major league asshole with a lot of opposition already. We helped a BIT, not much, though we get the blame. A lot of “How terrible the Shah’s Iran” was was written by pro-Pal style lefties in the 80s. The Shah wasn’t great but did a LOT of very good, secular, economic stuff though the miniskirt stuff wasn’t as big as photos of the era suggest. North Tehran only.
Given GDP trends from the 60s and 70s, without the revolution Iran SHOULD have a GDP close to that of Southern Europe: Portugal, Greece (IMF numbers)
Revolutions and religion/Islam will give you a failed state.
In the current mess: Iranians aren’t seeing what we are seeing. There is huge censorship there, now even the internet is down (assuming they have electricity which often they don’t.) VPNs etc are for a few of the wealthy elite – so what nearly all Iranians are seeing is the polar opposite of what the rest of the world is.
Finally..and I’ll try to shut my yap (I do have a column.. heheh.. why am I writing here?*)…. the despondent and rebellious Iranians we hear from are all elite, many very educated exiles and westerners. Sure we hear of cocktail parties in Nth Tehran but that world is a long way from the religious masses, rural… folks, and the mass proles. They see the world differently. This isn’t Romania or E. Germany AT ALL.
D.A.
NYC
*Because I actually like the WEIT people and I don’t know my larger public audience.
“The 50s Mosaddeq coup wasn’t as much American influenced as our current history books suggest. Mossy was a major league asshole with a lot of opposition already. We helped a BIT, not much, though we get the blame.”
Did that “BIT” include, starting in 1957, the CIA playing a role in forming, funding and training the Shah’s benevolent and protective SAVAK? Does one correctly take it that the Shah was democratically elected, but Mosaddeq was not? The U.S. would never overthrow democracies, would it? (Re: that U.S. favorite, Pinochet.)
As with Saddam Hussein so with the Shah? Am reminded that the U.S. funded Saddam in his war with Iran 1980-88. As Brent Scowcroft said of Hussein, “he’s a SOB but he’s OUR SOB.” ((Re: that inconvenient film of that love fest handshaking between Saddam and Donald Rumsfeld in the early 80’s, 1983 IIRC.)
Careful of the “presentism” there Filippo. You’d think if the earlier coup was a “CIA thing” then helping SAVAK would have come earlier than 1957, right?
Nevertheless… yes the CIA did indeed help the Shah in his oppression of dissent (and when they failed… comes now the Islamic Republic), like they did with assorted Latin American caudillos, hither and thither dictators AND absolutely Saddam Hussein (where I imagine Scowcroft, Rummy et al said “We’re not losing Saddam like we lost the Shah!”).
“Everybody was doing it back then” is a kind of moral dodge, I’m aware, but it also explains a lot.
And for comparison… the KGB were teaching an awful lot of amateur dentistry classes and fingernail extraction techniques to the entire power structures of the Second World*. These sins are almost unremembered now. (and being erased in Russia).
Thing is with the Shah, however bad SAVAK was (and it was) it was better than what came afterwards (sheer numbers of deaths, terrorizing the entire society not just the Shah’s enemies), AND his economic and women’s rights, land reforms and the “White Revolution” could easily have progressed to Iran today being civilized and much wealthier.
Similar story with the King of Afghanistan next door but that ended in 70s horror as badly (with Communism).
best to you Filippo,
D.A.
NYC
*Funny how we never hear that term anymore.
Good comment. It fits with my reading of the situation.
All that the Islamic regime has left as an organizing principle is its hatred of Israel (Little Satan) and the United States (Great Satan). These are not principles that can realistically sustain the aspirations of the Iranian people. The regime has nothing to negotiate, it has lost its proxies, and it does not have any leverage.
Do the Europeans really want a de-escalation that leaves a nuclear-aspiring theocratic Iran in place? Do they even know what they want? Maybe they are afraid that a destabilized Iran will lead to waves of migration into Europe.
In general, I agree with Bret Stephens. Get rid of the nuclear threats at Natanz and Fordow.
Imagine a nuclear-armed Iran triggering a region-wide sprint to nuclear weapons. Now, imagine that not happening.
The US has B2 bombers at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. They don’t need to fly them from Missouri at this point.
Although is the ordnance that would be needed in place at Diego Garcia?
Wow the vibe really has changed. The series “Last Meal” has a lineup stuffed with heretics: Kathleen Stock, Andrew Gold, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Greg Lukianoff. This would have been very hard to get produced as recently as last year. Will have to watch the series to see if any of them requested surf & TERF as a last meal.
Oh I didn’t notice that (I didn’t watch the trailer as I hate cooking shows).
But with those guys/gals I certainly will! They’d be like my “perfect dinner party”.
Thanks Mike.
D.A.
NYC
Love seeing your pictures of the giraffes from last year, Jerry. What a trip that was.
A big thank you to Andrzej for keeping Hili going. We do love her and it would be sad to lose contact with you two over there in Dobrzyn. Your heart must be aching so.
You’re certainly in our thoughts.