Howard Eissenstat

This is very much worth reading.

I think it fair to say that any official count of casualties from a bombing campaign is likely to be a severe undercount.

Especially true of civilian deaths.

You know what’s the sort of thing you’d invest in if you wanted to reduce Iranian power over the global economy in the long run? Renewables, that’s what.

Yep, that's the guy!

Strait of Hormuz crisis is reinforcing my prior that many geopolitical disasters involve people looking at maps badly

Remember this:

If John Yoo can rehabilitate himself and be treated as a legitimate voice of expertise, anyone can.

The article was published four days before the US and Israel began hostilities....

Trump’s top general foresees acute risks in an attack on Iran The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has said that a lack of munitions and allied support could mean greater danger for U.S. troops, people familiar with the talks say.

I wonder what the Pentagon was trying to tell us with all those leaks before the war?

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

You know its bad when Ted fucking Cruz is a voice for sanity.

In fairness, the Pentagon was madly leaking warnings that this could all go very, very badly before hostilities began.

Turkey's Halkbank settles US criminal case over Iran sanctions violations The U.S. government agreed to resolve its long-running criminal prosecution of Turkish state-run lender Halkbank , saying the accord furthers Washington's interest in curbing support for ​Iran.

Cracking up at the Trump administration resolving HalkBank's case for evading the US's Iran sanctions during an actual war on Iran www.reuters.com/business/fin...

In the glory days of Turkish twitter, this would have been reposted, commented upon, and become rage bait for thousands of people.

broke: footbinding
woke: footmaxxing

Despite the past decade of war, the Pentagon still struggles to adjust to the reality of asymmetric warfare. It was IEDs, not Chinese stealth jets or Russian state hackers, that created multibillion-dollar agencies that spend billions of dollars on armored trucks and explosives detectors. Technologically unsophisticated insurgents who built $100 bombs killed thousands of troops and pushed the U.S. into an arms race it could never win. The Pentagon never addressed the reason bombs had become so effective against its troops; it just wanted to build a better truck.

Anyway, I’m posting that old article today for no reason, it has no bearing on the current ongoing conflicts the US is wrapped up in.

Actually good Türkiye discourse -

"Screw it, let's add ü to English"
"Where's the reciprocity?"
"What about English words like anti-Müllerian hormone?"

Mike Johnson refuses to condemn anti-Muslim comments by Republican lawmakers Andy Ogles said Muslims do not belong in the US and Randy Fine made a comparison of Muslims to dogs

It's not just that he refused to condemn Ogles and Fine; he endorsed the substance of their vile messages, taking issue only with their "tone," and he introduced a new line of bigotry-fueled conspiracy theory about Muslims wanting to impose sharia law. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Trump Says the Iran War Is Nearly Won but Israel Has Other Ideas Israel is sticking with its goal of creating the conditions for regime change in Tehran.

Unsurprisingly (I wrote about it on the first day of the war) the differences in strategic objective, and subsequent operational direction, between Israel and the US are emerging.

www.wsj.com/world/middle...

There's a strategic level to the Gaza-fication of the Middle East that goes beyond Israel's razing tactics and applies to theories of victory.

For Israel, victory lies in the damage done by the razing.

For Iran, as for Hamas (and Hezbollah), victory is surviving to emerge from the rubble.

Yet another mayor detained in Turkey. This time in Döşemealtı municipality in Antalya. And yes, he's from CHP.

17/ "Never start a bombing campaign that will completely halt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz" is right up there with "never get involved in a land war in Asia” in terms of the classic blunders. -- Nate Silver
buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

Those inside the ICE system further detail its depravity. A must listen.

Does the Lawlessness of the Iran War Matter? An overarching question is whether the laws of war even matter when powerful states seem able to do as they please with little consequence.

If you missed my UMass @sbs-umass.bsky.social webinar on international law and Iran today, you can read a summary of my key points here: www.worldpoliticsreview.com/us-israel-ir...

🧵A thread about the Jewish community, Democrats, and Israel🧵

Rahm Emanuel, the über-centrist former Chicago mayor eyeing a presidential bid, just told a reporter that Bibi "led the Jewish people into a ghetto."

Jewish establishment sees cracks like this as a crisis. I believe it's an opportunity.

I was talking about the use of familial titles in different cultures with a student and noted that, at a fundamental level, I feel weirdly parental about my advisees futures. I'm not sure it is healthy, but that's definitely how I feel.

Media coverage of this needs to start with informing people that the JCPOA existed, what it did, that it was working, & that Trump unilaterally destroyed it, & inform them that anything now is almost certain to fall short of that.

Coming from Germany, this “warning” is not trivial. It does carry real symbolic (and possibly some political) significance. But enough to change Israel’s policy? Probably not.

And yet, somehow, it will all turn out to be Obama's fault.

Also, "Don't be evil."

Depuis l’Irak, les combattants kurdes iraniens espèrent la chute de la « dictature honnie » à Téhéran Entre 4000 et 5000 soldats kurdes iraniens sont basés au Kurdistan irakien. Ils attendent beaucoup de l’opération américano-israélienne en Iran.

#Reportage En Irak, l’espoir des combattants kurdes iraniens www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

"By leaking ... that Kurds would fight alongside Israel and the US against Tehran, you place those groups in an impossible position before they have agreed to do anything."

@ezgibasaran.bsky.social on the Iran war and its implications for the Turkey-PKK peace talks:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=moK1...