Steven Heydemann

Syria’s Unclear Settlement Process Risks Fanning Discontent Among Ex-Regime Soldiers  - New Lines Institute Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa held a meeting with representatives from coastal communities on Dec. 13 in which he told members of the minority Alawite sect that, “only those with blood on their han...

newlinesinstitute.org/middle-east-...

Pope Leo XIV’s Vatican newspaper is the only publication in the Western world to run the photograph of 150 Iranian girls' graves — killed in President Trump's military strikes — on its front page.

From Wikipedia.

Ogles studied at Middle Tennessee State University, where he failed every course taken in the fall of 1995 and the fall of 1998; he returned in 2007 and graduated with a 2.4 grade point average.

A racist and stupid. They do kinda go together.

Will Ogles be censured for his comments?

Because it's quite hard to read this as anything but a call for the expulsion (or worse) of 4.5 million people on the basis of their religion.

"He did call Trump several times asking him not to attack." -Bernard Haykel on Muhammad Bin Salman's efforts

This is an important correction to inaccurate reports claiming Netanyahu & MBS both lobbied for war & distracts from the fact this is an US-Israeli war.

open.spotify.com/episode/5Wdj...

Trump ‘will not sign other bills’ until Republicans pass SAVE America Act The statement is a blunt ultimatum to Congress — pass the anti-voting bill or risk seeing other legislation stalled.

President Donald Trump declared Sunday that he will not sign any other legislation until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, dramatically escalating his campaign to force the voter suppression bill through the Senate. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

*those folks

Reading media accounts questioning hereditary succession in Iran with the appointment of Khamenai’s son as Supreme Leader.

Don’t horses folks know the origins of the Sunni-Shi’a split in Islam? The whole Abu Bakr thing? Remember?

🙄

Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid Footage obtained by The Handbasket’s lawsuit shows a hostile takeover on March 17, 2025.

SCOOP — Body camera footage obtained as a result of my lawsuit against the DC Metropolitan PD confirms DOGE and the Trump administration openly admitted they were entering private property when they raided the building on March 17, 2025. That didn't stop MPD from breaking down the doors.

My report:

Some folks are just uneducable.

Oh man. We are so fucked.

A terrific place. Beautiful.

Significance: 95 year old Ali al- Sistani has been at odds with the Islamic Republic, as @valinasr.bsky.social has pointed out the chasm between the two is “profound”, now he has thrown his full weight behind the resistance, “community defense”, just as new Supreme Leader is about to be announced.

Great news. I look forward to seeing them.

Karim - Will papers be available?

Exclusive: Turkey asks Britain's MI6 to step up protection of Syria's Sharaa, sources say; Ankara denies report Turkey’s intelligence agency asked ​its British counterpart MI6 last month to take a larger role in protecting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa after recent assassination plots, according to five peop...

Exclusive: Turkey asks Britain's MI6 to step up protection of Syria's Sharaa, sources say; Ankara denies report - www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Iran spent years fostering proxies in Iraq. Now, many aren’t eager to join the war Tehran’s Shi’ite proxies in Iraq have so far launched few attacks during the U.S.-Israel assault on Iran. Insiders tell Reuters how the decimation of other pro-Iran regional groups, and the pursuit of...

Iran spent years fostering proxies in Iraq. Now, many aren’t eager to join the war - www.reuters.com/investigatio...

You mean Dumbowitz? Guy is an idiot. And I wouldn’t describe FDD as secretive. Nothing it loves more than attention.

Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid Footage obtained by The Handbasket’s lawsuit shows a hostile takeover on March 17, 2025.

Doge stole USIP and knew it at the time it illegally seized the building. @usip.org

www.thehandbasket.co/p/body-cam-f...

While US encourages Kurds to attack Iran, history serves darker warning Kurds weigh Washington's push for a rebellion on Iranian soil against a history of betrayals and pragmatic alliances.

www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

Exclusive: US investigation points to likely US responsibility in Iran school strike, sources say U.S. military investigators believe it is likely that U.S. forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls' school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reache...

Exclusive: US investigation points to likely US responsibility in Iran school strike, sources say - www.reuters.com/world/middle...

4/ and this is the community that the US views as its best bet to take on regime forces? A militia constituted from a community that is a tiny minority, and non-Shi'a?

It's dangerous, delusional, idiocy to think that anything positive can result from such a numbskull-ian idea. Fucking stupid.

3/ a long history of irredentism, and it doesn't take much to imagine how Ankara might view the mobilization of a US-supplied Kurdish militia in adjacent Iran -- a border that is essentially unchanged since being settled by a treaty in 1639 (you can look it up).

2/ of Iran's population overall, are mostly Sunni. Kurds in the south, maybe 30-35% of the Kurdish population, located mostly in Kermanshah and Ilam, are Shi`a. Kurds in the north are located in several provinces along the border with Turkey. They have

CIA working to arm Kurdish forces to spark uprising in Iran, sources say | CNN Politics The CIA is working to arm Kurdish forces with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran and the Trump administration has been in active discussions with Iranian opposition groups and Kurdish lea...

This is Trump level stupidity. Arming Iranian Kurds in the north as part of a ground operation? For fuck's sake. With what aim in mind? Kurds in Iran's north, about 60-65% of a minority that totals at best 10%

www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/p...

Trump Tries to Quiet Claims Among Supporters That Israel Dragged Him Into War

Deep irony here. One reason prior presidents downgraded the ME as a US priority was their sense that Arab leaders always tried to drag the US into their conflicts. Yet it's Bibi who is pulling the strings now, while Trump desperately tries to cover it up.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/u...

We have students who’ve been entirely on their own to get back to the U.S.

US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges Religious freedom group says 200 troops sent complaints of superiors using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify war

US military is going to need a serious deep clean to scrub this shit out of the services.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

After the strike: The danger of war in Iran | Brookings Brookings experts break down what the war in Iran means and what's at stake internationally and domestically.

Expert analysis from @stephanietwilliams.bsky.social, @sharangrewal.bsky.social, @stevenhyde.bsky.social, and other Middle East experts @brookings.edu.

www.brookings.edu/articles/aft...

Yanar Mohammed, a leading Iraqi feminist and co‑founder of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, was assassinated outside her home in Baghdad on March 2, 2026.

For more than two decades, Yanar was one of Iraq’s most courageous advocates for women’s rights.