James Ryan

I’ve had the thought over the last few days that all this would make more sense if these millenarian Christians turned out to be correct.

Another lesson I learned in the Bush years is that armchair psychology on these people is its own kind of pathology. I think closer to the mark is social media’s polarizing and viral nature. People with these predispositions get the worst of those instincts reinforced on the regular.

Yes, and I’m not seeing it. Hardly at all.

One aspect (among many) of this war that concerns me is the Islamophobic racism of the war’s supporters in congress and the media is somehow more callous and virulent despite low public support for the war.

Good plan, there’s no way that the US would ever betray Kurds who fought on their behalf, or that Turkey would be upset by and seek to frustrate any US-backed Kurdish forces, or that an invasion from Iraq would trigger Iranian nationalist opposition. None of those things have ever happened.

WWII vet who became a chemist on the GI bill and worked forty some years at Merck. Owner of a construction firm in Cuba turned refugee and, eventually, manager of a construction firm here in the US.

The US and Israeli War on the Middle East Our recent work understanding the dynamics

Interested in following reliable news and credible analyses on the Iran war, but don't know where to start?

Here's "The US and Israeli War on the Middle East" from our friends @jdryan08.bsky.social and @merip.bsky.social:

www.merip.org/2026/03/the-...

I see we’re doing Sykes-Picot discourse again.

www.jadaliyya.com/Details/32140

Even better when you manage to provoke the committee into arguing with each other!

Indeed.

Most people only ever read it this way!

Urgent warning to residents of southern Lebanon: Hezbollah’s terrorist activities are forcing the Defense Army to act against it with force. The Defense Army does not intend to harm you. For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately. Anyone who is near Hezbollah members, its facilities, or its weapons puts his life at risk. Any house used by Hezbollah for military purposes may become a target. To the residents of southern Lebanon, you must go right away to the north side of the Litani River to ensure your safety—evacuate your homes immediately and move northward beyond the Litani River. Be aware that any movement southward will endanger your lives.

Quick translation of the IDF statement ordering all of south Lebanon's population to immediately leave.

Keep in mind that Israel has never stopped bombing south Lebanon since the 'ceasefire.' They are now taking the next step to destroy as much of the country as they can.

Not super related but a fun fact is that the PKK as it exists today owes a lot to the DFLP. This is an excellent story about the entwinement of the two national struggles which defined the region in the 20th century.

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi | The dry and the wet burn together The war launched against Iran by the United States and Israel is a war of choice and of hubris. There is scarcely even...

One constant in this moment for Iran is that @eskandarsadeghi.bsky.social is a must read. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

We’ve done a whole lot at MERIP over the last year that helps explain how we got here.

As the laid off Middle East News Editor, I concur. Management eliminated the positions of every single staff correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East.

It wasn’t any of the Arab countries it neighbors, nor the central asians. It wasn’t Martians. Who was actually looking for a fight?

You knew they were going to be attacked by whom, Marco?

Wow

"A veil burned in Tehran was a cry against state coercion—a fire aimed upward at power. A veil burned in the Dutch parliament in the name of solidarity with Iranian women protesters became a spectacle of state authority—a fire aimed downward at Muslim women."

I think freedom and sovereignty for Palestinians would go a long way to stabilizing the region. Not a panacea, but a sine qua non.

I’ll only add, the success of this strategy is contingent on two axes of support: 1) stability and cooperation across the Sunni Arab autocracies 2) material support from the US. As a matter of politics, both axes seem to be on shaky ground.

This is precisely it, and it mirrors their strategy in Lebanon and Syria. Where they cannot procure a compliant authoritarian, they settle for weakness, divided societies, and the ability to sustain that division through violence with impunity. Definitional rogue state.

An Iranian Sisi probably doesn’t exist… but we could get Shi’i Baathism and that might serve them just as well… [ducks… draws pistols]

RIP Jared Kushner🙏🏻

☠️

Repair Amid Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding Dahiyeh Once More Standing beside a destroyed building in Dahiyeh in September 2025, a fruit seller said to me, “I want to bring Naim Qassem [Hizballah’s new secretary general] here. I want to show him the damage. Our ...

And read her fantastic article on Dahiyeh. www.merip.org/2026/02/repa...

The MERIP Podcast Episode 16: Iman Ali In today’s episode Iman Ali talks about her recently published article, “Repair Amid Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding Dahiyeh Once More,” which appeared in our Winter 2025 issue, “Reconstruction and Ruin....

Seems like Hizbullah is finally firing back after more than a year of ceasefire violations on Israel’s side. For more on what it’s been like in Beirut since the fall of 2024, check out this podcast with Iman Ali I recorded last week. www.merip.org/2026/02/the-...

Al Jazeera reporting this too. Notable that Hezbollah did this, despite the blowback they will certainly receive from Israel, when Iran did nothing in the immediate aftermath of Nasrallah’s assassination by Israel x.com/babakvahdad/...