Sean Yom

Exclusive: Trump says he must be involved in picking Iran's next leader "Khamenei's son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran."

Our US policy of non-interventionism is so non-interventionist that we'd like to determine how a theocracy selects its next theocrat while bombing it and arming rebels against it

www.axios.com/2026/03/05/i...

US military launches operation in Ecuador to combat drug trafficking US Southern Command said joint mission with Ecuador involves ‘decisive action’ against illicit drug trafficking

It's like he wants to land troops everywhere except Iran

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Donald Trump won't ro=ule out boots on ground in Iran | The Jerusalem Post Speaking on Monday, Trump said he “didn’t care about polling,” argued that leaders sometimes must act without clear public backing, and claimed the operation was “way ahead of schedule.”

The GCC states shot down 5 warplanes today

3 were American
2 were Iranian

Trump just clarified he may order "boots on the ground"

Yep, war's going exactly as planned!

www.jpost.com/internationa...

Hegseth: 'We didn't start this war but under President Trump we're finishing it' The remarks are the first to reporters since the U.S.-Israeli military operations against Iran began Saturday despite weeks of talks designed to stave off a conflict.

"This is not a so-called regime change war"

Sorry what now, your boss said the precise opposite about 500 missiles ago

www.npr.org/2026/03/02/n...

Winning!

Pentagon tells Congress no sign that Iran was going to attack US first, sources say Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff on Sunday that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first, two people f...

"Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff on Sunday that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first." www.reuters.com/world/us/pen...

Trump says Iran leadership agrees to talks after US and Israel strike Tehran ‘They should have done it sooner, they waited too long,’ says Trump but he doesn’t say when talks would take place

1.5 days after the war for "regime change" in Iran started... Trump says he'll talk to its leaders to end the conflict. He refused to promise help for a popular uprising (that hasn't happened)

This is the demonic baby of a neocon-populist shotgun wedding

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

U.S. Races to Accomplish Iran Mission Before Munitions Run Out President Trump says the Iran campaign might last a week or longer, but dwindling stockpiles could limit his options.

Folks, the munitions may be running out for the Iran operation, and it will affect plans for the Pacific theatre. Some of us have been warning about this repeatedly.

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

The SAVE Act is so petty it tries to block students and Native Americans from voting. Many tribal IDs do NOT have an expiration date (because why would they? Tribal status doesn't expire).

And student IDs, even issued by the state, specifically don't count

I realize that "Orwellian" is over used but come on.

I remember when trying to forgive student loans was massive overreach of Presidential power.

Trump’s Top Suck-Up Thirsts Over Americans Dying in Iran The MAGA senator acknowledged there could be U.S. casualties.

The ones in Washington who clamor hardest for war are the ones with the least to lose. They're not fighting or dying. For them it's abstract strategy and ideological signaling and media pandering.

It's always lions being led by lambs.

www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-top-s...

What to know about Reza Pahlavi, a potential successor to lead Iran Pahlavi called the U.S. strikes "a humanitarian intervention, and its target is the Islamic Republic."

That's right, the son of the last deposed Iranian dictator (overthrown by a popular revolution that needed no foreign intervention to succeed) and who's been exiled from Iran for 50 years is actually the only logical choice

Ahmad Chalabi syndrome

www.axios.com/2026/02/28/u...

US-Israeli strike on girls' school kills at least 85 students, Iran's judiciary says At least 85 students have been killed in US-Israeli strikes that hit an Iranian girls' school in Hormozgan province, Iran's judiciary said on Saturday. Washington has not commented on the reported str...

Yes, that's right. This is how you show democratic solidarity with the Iranian people and, to the world, justify the latest "this time is different" war of regime change in the Middle East.

By bombing schools.

www.france24.com/en/asia-paci...

Trump’s strikes on Iran are an illegal war of choice—and Europeans should say so – European Council on Foreign Relations As the conflict threatens to escalate, European governments must make an assertive case for diplomacy and prepare for humanitarian catastrophe

Trump’s strikes on Iran are an illegal war of choice—and Europeans should say so: ecfr.eu/article/trum...

It's also a perverse tactic to signal virtue without blame

Strikes --> successful domestic uprising: US is white knight, takes all the credit for paving the way

Strikes --> no/failed domestic uprising: US is white knight, not its fault people didn't take advantage and fight for freedom

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

"We may have casualties... that often happens in war."

FTFY: "Hope is my strategy"

truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT...

ISRAEL ATTACKS IRAN; US OFFICIAL SAYS US TOOK PART IN STRIKES Multiple explosions heard in Tehran, elsewhere, as Israel launches attacks on Iran with US help.

Of the many theoretical explanations and rational debates of this US/Israeli strike on Iran, has anyone considered the possibility that nobody knows what the f*** they're doing

www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblo...

Lindsey Graham frets that Trump's advisers oppose Iran strike Graham urged Trump to ignore them and pull the trigger.

Preamble to every US military intervention:

"I understand concerns about major military operations in the Middle East given past entanglements. However, the voices who counsel against getting entangled seem to ignore the consequences of letting evil go unchecked"

www.axios.com/2026/02/22/g...

Trump Menaces Iran With Massive Armada Capable of Prolonged War The amount of military forces gathering near Iran dwarfs even the monthslong build-up before the U.S. coup in Venezuela.

Can't wait to hear him talk about how this One Big Beautiful War justifies getting the Nobel Peace Prize

theintercept.com/2026/02/19/t...

This Must Be The Podcast: Sean Yom It is difficult to not worry about the stability and even survival of Jordan these days. Escalating Israeli aggression in the West Bank and political momentum towards annexation puts the Kingdom squar...

“Yom insists on seeing Jordan for itself, not as a function of American interests or of Israeli concerns..based on deep field research and an encylopedic knowledge of the political science literature.. will likely productively annoy certain audiences.”

abuaardvarkghost.ghost.io/this-must-be...

Q: Rodriguez called it a 'kidnapping' of Maduro

TRUMP: That's alright. That's not a bad term.

head of chiquita banana wanting to ask the forbidden question now that trump is overthrowing governments for oil companies

According to the current administration, none of the following counts as "war" requiring Congressional authorization:

1) Bombing the Middle East, Africa, and/or Latin America
2) Bombing nuclear facilities
3) Kidnapping foreign leaders

Can’t believe the winner of the FIFA Peace Prize would launch a war like this.

One of my favorite presents ever—my dad found and framed this pic of my mother @sunminkimes.bsky.social at a Seattle courthouse after she passed her US citizenship test in 1981. Like so many of the people who come here to start a new life, she is the best of us—the bravest, strongest person I know.

Just weeks after the fall of the regime, Zein al-Assad returned to her studies at the Abu Dhabi branch of the Sorbonne, a renowned French university, according to family friends and a classmate. She was accompanied on campus, the classmate said, by large and imposing bodyguards. Not all Syrian students embraced her return. In a group chat, one student told Ms. al-Assad she was “not welcome,” according to two people who said they had seen the exchange. Shortly afterward, they said, the entire chat was shut down, and the student was no longer seen on campus. A relative of the student said he had been questioned by the Emirati authorities and later left the university in part because of this incident.

The Sorbonne Abu Dhabi said the student’s dismissal was a “purely academic matter” and cited three infractions, including cheating. The acrimony in the chat group with Zein al-Assad had “no connection” to the dismissal, the university said. The classmate said that Ms. al-Assad had not attended classes for part of her last term. But she did pick up a diploma in June at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, where she was also enrolled. Photographs of the graduation showed her brothers and mother in attendance.

Bashar al-Assad's daughter has been living and studying in the UAE since the regime fell, at the Sorbonne in Abu Dhabi, where it looks like Emirati authorities are her enforcers, kicking out another Syrian student who dared to criticize her in a group chat. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/w...

Why Tiny Jordan Is a Microcosm for Understanding the Entire Middle East However accidental its historical genesis, Jordan has become a crucible of knowledge about how power and geopolitics operate in the region.

“Jordan cannot be reduced to the banalities of orientalist folklore, much less the other tropes that have long garbled how the Western media describe the kingdom.”

@seanyom.bsky.social in Hidden Cities on what Jordan’s history reveals about the Middle East: www.hidden-cities.com/p/why-tiny-j...

Why Tiny Jordan Is a Microcosm for Understanding the Entire Middle East However accidental its historical genesis, Jordan has become a crucible of knowledge about how power and geopolitics operate in the region.

"However accidental its historical genesis, Jordan has become a crucible of knowledge about how power and geopolitics operate in the region." @seanyom.bsky.social in Hidden Cities on how tiny Jordan helps explain the entire Middle East: www.hidden-cities.com/p/why-tiny-j...

Don't miss our online event tomorrow, Dec. 11, 2 PM ET: “Politics in an Accidental Crucible:” A discussion of Sean Yom’s new book, “Jordan”

With @seanyom.bsky.social, @mattlac.bsky.social, Ben Schutze, Jamal al Tahat, Yara Bataineh, @sarahleah1.bsky.social

Register: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...