James Ryan

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 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/...

Did Bari Weiss write this tweet?

These dolts write as if Nargess Mohammadi does not already exist.

Iran has a great many Mandelas and Walesas. Most of them are in a prison that Israel bombed back in July.

At last, a just war Now Iranians must find their own Mandela or Walesa, writes Yair Lapid

Yair Lapid, who has endorsed the indiscriminate nature of Israel's war on Iran which includes the systematic series of assassinations of opposition figures, claims that Iran must now find "a Mandela or Walesa"

Been muttering this to myself every day for over a year.

The number of dead kids in the Israeli bombing of a girl’s school in Minab, southern Iran, has now reached 148.

Don’t let them sell you dead children as “collateral damage of a just war”. The death of Khamenei does not justify 148 dead children.

The IDF said they are targeting mil and political leaders “past, present, and future.” In June they bombed Evin prison — where the most credible opposition leaders are housed. US and Isr are not interested in Iranian democracy or freedom only an unfreedom more suitable to their interests.

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Iraqis Celebrate in Baghdad In Baghdad, security forces desert the streets, replaced by looters, and government officials have disappeared. Hundreds of Iraqi civilians take to the streets, cheering U.S. soldiers and ripping up p...

I'm mostly unimpressed w comparisons between the US invasion of Iraq and the current war on Iran, but I can't help but remember that many -maybe even most- Iraqis were delighted to see the regime fall in Spring, 2003.

Chaos and lawlessness soon turned out to be worse.

www.npr.org/2003/04/09/1...

This map shows widely dispersed dots representing the guesses of US survey respondents about the location of Iran on a world map. 23% placed a dot in the correct area.

Where is Iran?
Each dot represents an American's guess.
pro.morningconsult.com/articles/can... 🌐

Live: Khamenei's body has been found and he is confirmed dead, Israeli official says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were many signs indicating Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "is no longer", without explicitly confirming his death.

www.reuters.com/world/iran-c...

The refugee spillover from Iran is about to grow enormously

Please run against Fetterman. I’m sorry.

And regime decapitation without a ground invasion really seems to me like a recipe for civil war of the 21st century Iraq or Syria variety.

Iran turning into Iraq 91-2003 from a US perspective (no long term operation but periodic strikes and actions to check weapons development) sounds plausible to me, but we should all remember how that ended…