glykosymoritis

"The essence of oligarchical rule," George Orwell wrote in 1984, "is the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living." For nearly four decades, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presided over exactly that. He did not build the Islamic Republic of Iran. He inherited it from its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in 1979 led a revolution that deposed a U.S.-aligned monarchy and replaced it with an Islamist theocracy whose three ideological pillars were "Death to America," "Death to Israel," and the mandatory covering of women—the hijab, he said, was "the flag of the revolution."

Khamenei confronted the paradox that every revolutionary caretaker must face: The revolution he preserved was designed for a world that no longer exists. George Kennan once wrote of the Soviet Union, "No mystical, Messianic movement can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs." Khamenei staved off that adjustment for nearly four decades through force of will, brutality, and the conviction that bending would mean breaking. In the end, he was felled by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, an American president and an Israeli prime minister whom he loathed. He lived by "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." He died by death from America and Israel.

The death of #Khamenei and the end of an era: His life’s work was to preserve a revolution that is heading for the ash heap.
He lived by “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” He died by death from America and Israel. www.theatlantic.com/internationa... #Iran #Islamism #obituary

Tens of thousands of Iranians have been murdered by a regime since protests began in December that treats its citizens as expendable. To look away now would be to accept that such crimes can continue without consequence. Iranians and Jews are not enemies. They never were. Long before the Islamic Republic hijacked Iran's identity, ties between the two peoples were built on mutual respect and a shared history. In recent years, as Iranians poured into the streets demanding an end to clerical rule, they were told they would not be abandoned again. That the free world would not watch passively as the regime crushed another generation. Those words mattered to Iranians; they believed them. Especially to people risking their lives with nothing but courage. Israelis understand what it means to live under existential threat. They understand the cost of inaction. And they understand that sometimes history offers a narrow window, and this one that may not come again.

Israelis willing to suffer #Iran 's worst to free Iranian people: The Islamic Regime has spent decades funneling its people's resources into terror organisations. A region without them would finally have the possibility of security, economic growth, and a future. www.jpost.com/opinion/arti...

For four years, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made the war against Ukraine the lodestar of his every move. The single-minded approach has helped Mr. Putin salvage what began as a disastrous invasion, get his troops back on the front foot and dictate demands in peace talks mediated by Washington. But his stubborn pursuit of the war has come at a huge cost. It has killed or wounded as many as 1.2 million Russians, by some estimates, while reordering Russia's economy and society in ways that many economists believe jeopardize the nation's future. "You have lots of money spent on tanks, shells, bombs, military benefits and other things - no long-lasting value, nothing that works on what we call development," said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official who is now a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. Even before the war, talk of economic stagnation clouded Russia's long-term prospects. Its economy, dominated by natural resource extraction, had been slow to diversify. A post-Soviet collapse in birthrates had led to a shrinking population. Freedoms were disappearing under growing authoritarianism. Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, has amplified all of these challenges and added new ones, as the Kremlin redirects vast state resources into the war effort and pursues a broader militarization of society. Nearly 40 percent of Russia's federal budget is now devoted to the military and security. Another 9 percent goes to interest payments on the debt that Mr. Putin has decided to take on to finance the war, a departure from years of tight fiscal discipline.

Russia is quickly burning through its National Wealth Fund, a rainy-day financial cushion that Mr. Putin had built up using oil and gas revenues. The fund's liquid reserves were worth about $55 billion this month, down from $113 billion before the war. While China and the United States invest heavily in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies, Russia has focused on weapons. On global lists of innovation in A.L., Russia is a laggard. "The war is really eating up a lot of resources," said Janis Kluge, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "If it hadn't started, they would have had so much money to spend, simply." In addition to being a money pit, the war has shattered Russia's remaining ties with the West and made it less attractive for investors. Foreign direct investment has cratered. Domestic investment has been crimped by high interest rates aimed at taming inflation, in an economy pumped up by heavy military spending. The war has also exacerbated Russia's demographic crisis. As many as 325,000 troops have died on the battlefield, according to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Some studies predict that the Russian population could, in pessimistic scenarios, drop below 100 million by 2100, down from a prewar population of roughly 145 million.

The country has suffered a brain drain, with hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing abroad as the Kremlin uses wartime legal powers to crack down on dissent. Since the start of the war, at least 4,029 people have been targeted in politically motivated criminal cases in Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine, according to Political Prisoners Memorial, a Russian human rights group. The war has weighed in particular on younger Russians. In a survey last fall, Chronicles, an independent Russian polling start-up, found that 59 percent of Russians aged 18 to 29 would support a decision to withdraw from Ukraine without achieving Mr. Putin's stated goals, compared to 42 percent of all Russians who were surveyed. Nearly half of the young Russians polled saw recent moves to curb the Telegram messaging app as a restriction on their freedom of speech. Stefan Meister, a Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, said that Mr. Putin had not set forth a vision for Russia's long-term prosperity in an era of vast technological change. Instead, Mr. Meister said, Mr. Putin has focused on war objectives that involve reinstating Russia's power over lands that it once controlled. "He has no vision for the future but only a vision for the past," Mr. Meister said. "This war is exactly what that represents, and it is very costly for the country."

Now, the economy is beginning to descend from that high as it faces state spending cutbacks and big strains in the labor market. Russia's oil and gas revenues dropped by almost a quarter last year, as global prices fell and sanctions imposed discounts on Russian crude. While the downturn is not yet severe enough to force Mr. Putin to end the war, Moscow has raised taxes and taken other measures to shore up its finances. Russia's economic future depends largely on what terms Moscow can negotiate in any peace deal and how effectively it can reintegrate the nation into the global economy. As security costs and debt payments consume half of Russia's federal budget, much of the rest is spent on vast state social obligations, including pensions, health care and education. Ms. Prokopenko, the former Russian central bank official, said that effectively "all expenditures which are not related to the military or supporting social life are on hold." She said that a great deal of Russia's resources, reserves and entrepreneurial talent could have been used for future development but were focused instead on maintaining an illusion that it was "business as usual." One example is apps that were developed to allow Russians to transfer money and spend it in cryptocurrency after the country was cut off from the international banking system. "Lots of innovations, what we see now in Russian IT, are devoted to how to circumvent sanctions or how to bring our consumption of stuff or our services back to the habit of prewar levels," Ms. Prokopenko said. "Instead of thinking about something new, they spend time and resources on how to replace what has already been done but is not available now." The war has also divided Russia's economy. Businesses related to the military or that profited from the departure of foreign companies have boomed. The rest of Russia is mostly struggling, as the gas, car and coal industries collapse, manufacturing activity drops and small businesses try to cope with…

How Russia put its future at risk by remaking its economy for war:
About half of the country’s federal budget goes toward the fight in Ukraine, money that does little to support its long-term development. archive.ph/GRmh0 #RussiaUkraineWar #putinisn #totalitarianism

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Trump singled out for praise during his State of the Union address Tuesday in which the president also mentioned the Iranian threat, had this to say about the Islamic Republic yesterday: "You can see them always trying to rebuild elements of [the nuclear program]. They're not enriching [uranium] right now, but they're trying to get to the point where they ultimately can." To be clear, nuclear proliferation is only part of the reason for Trump's hawkishness toward Iran of late. In fact, it's probably third on the list. There is also Iran's ballistic-missile program, which Israel considers an existential threat and with which Iran would like to be able to reliably threaten Europe. The main reason, however, is the Iranian regime's monstrous massacring of thousands of peaceful protesters in defiance of Trump's warnings that such behavior would itself be provocation enough for some kind of military action. So what we have is a list of reasons to strike Iran-all of them legitimate-and the Iranian refusal to agree to Trump's terms relating to each of those issues. We have a Mideast military buildup not seen in many decades. And earlier today, the IDF struck more Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Trump’s military buildup can only be defended as part of an all-or-nothing negotiating strategy. But all this for an off-ramp? Either these talks are all for show or the president is going to undertake one of the steepest climb-downs we’ve ever seen. www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/... #Iran

As Kim Jong-un brought North Korea's ninth party congress to a close on Thursday, he did so with his 13-year-old daughter at his side. Kim Ju-ae and her father were pictured in matching black leather trench coats as they climbed out of a car and ascended a red-carpeted staircase before presiding over throngs of cheering citizens, saluting soldiers and a vast military procession that rolled through the streets of Pyongyang: Kim Ju-ae's appearance during the finale of the country's most important political event, held every five years, will stoke further speculation that she is being groomed as heir. Analysts said the choice of jackets - a staple of leader Kim's wardrobe, especially during key public appearances - was more than a fashion statement. "In North Korea's political symbolism, that look carries weight - it's tied to the image of the leader as the ultimate guarantor of national security and future prosperity," said Lim Eul-chul, an analyst with the Institute for Far Eastern Studies. "So when that same symbolic attire is put on his young daughter, it's hard to see it as accidental." It was the latest in a long line of public appearances by Kim Ju-ae, who has steadily attended more events alongside her father, while also appearing in state newspapers and on television. Analysts have likened her public rise to that of a debutante princess, considering everything from her interactions with Kim, attendance at high-profile events and her increasingly diplomatic dress sense.

How Kim Jong-un groomed his daughter to be his successor:
North Korean leader and 13-year-old Kim Ju-ae’s matching trench coats during party congress is more than a fashion statement archive.ph/eBYnh #totalitarianism #NorthKorea

Following the January crackdown, rights groups say the practice became systematic, as the regime sought to reinforce its narrative that security forces were defending the country from US- and Israel-backed agents. In many cases, families say they were pressured to register their loved ones as members of the Basij paramilitary volunteer militia, the state-backed force charged with suppressing the protests. Others were instructed to describe them as "martyrs" for the Islamic Republic killed by terrorist groups or foreign agents. Some say they were told to say their relatives died from drug overdoses or accidents.

Iranian regime pressures families of slain protesters to bury truth of crackdown.
Threatening relatives of protesters has long been a tactic used by Iranian authorities to suppress dissent. edition.cnn.com/2026/02/26/m... #Islamism #authoritarianism #Iran

Authoritarian regimes have long utilized imprisonment, exile, and censorship to silence their critics. But in Algiers, the military-backed government has just codified a far more insidious weapon: the total erasure of identity. With the formal enactment of new, draconian amendments to the 1970 Nationality Law this week, the Algerian state has officially embraced "civil death" as its primary tool against political dissent. The message echoing from the halls of the El Mouradia Palace is unmistakable: citizenship is no longer an inherent right of the Algerian people; it is a temporary lease, strictly conditional upon absolute subservience to the regime. The weaponization of identity The genesis of this legislative purge traces back to late 2025, when President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ominously called on citizens to unite against "the traitor in the house." That rhetoric has now been crystallized into law. Published in the official gazette after a rubber-stamp parliamentary approval, the revised Article 22 grants the state sweeping powers to strip native-born Algerians of their nationality. The criteria for this civic excommunication are terrifyingly broad. The law targets anyone accused of committing acts that "harm the fundamental interests of Algeria," threaten "national unity," or undermine "state security." It explicitly outlines six conditions for revoking citizenship, including "openly practicing hostile activities," showing loyalty to a foreign state, or acting on behalf of a "hostile entity."

In practice, these elastic legal definitions are a dragnet designed to crush the diaspora and the intelligentsia. We have already seen the preamble to this strategy. The internationally acclaimed Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal was previously thrown into a dark cell, accused of "harming national unity" simply for wielding a pen. Meanwhile, figures like Ferhat Mehenni, the Paris-based leader of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), are the clear, immediate targets of this new legal guillotine. By targeting dissidents who have sought refuge overseas, Algiers is attempting to extend its authoritarian reach beyond its borders, threatening exiles with statelessness if they dare to speak out. Suffocating the political sphere If the weaponization of citizenship targets the individual, the regime's parallel moves in the parliament are designed to suffocate institutional life. Simultaneously, the Algerian government is aggressively pushing a new "Law on Political Parties." Presented under the guise of "moralizing political life," the legislation is a masterclass in state hegemony. The Minister of the Interior recently laid out the stark new reality: crippling restrictions on party funding, the complete prohibition of any political activity based on religious or regional identities, and the power of the executive to suspend or dissolve parties that fail to meet arbitrary electoral participation quotas.

While loyalist parties praise these moves as a defense against "fourth-generation warfare," the reality is much darker. The regime is systematically dismantling any remaining infrastructure for democratic transition. Opposition parties, particularly those that boycotted the 2021 elections, are now forced into a desperate scramble to comply, terrified of the legislative meat grinder that awaits them. A geopolitical red flag Algeria's descent into paranoia should be a glaring red flag. A regime that views its own citizens as an existential threat is inherently unstable. These extreme domestic measures are inextricably linked to Algeria's escalating external tensions. The regime's isolationist posture has driven a wedge between Algiers and its neighbors, particularly Morocco and Mali, while severely straining ties with historic partners like France. By incessantly raising the specter of "hostile foreign forces" and "treason," the military elite is attempting to manufacture a perpetual state of siege. It is a classic authoritarian distraction tactic: invent foreign enemies to justify the crushing of domestic liberties. Furthermore, these actions reflect the broader playbook of the anti-Western axis in the region. The centralization of power, the criminalization of dissent, and the aggressive posturing toward neighboring states that pursue peace and integration -such as Morocco's commitment to the Abraham Accords- highlight a regime that thrives on regional friction.

The illusion of amnesty In a transparent attempt to mask this authoritarian overreach, the Algerian presidency recently dangled a hollow "appeasement initiative," offering to drop charges against overseas activists if they sign written pledges to cease all opposition activities. It is extortion disguised as diplomacy. The state is offering to spare dissidents from statelessness, but only in exchange for their silence. Algeria's new legal framework is not an indicator of a strong state protecting its national security; it is the frantic thrashing of an insecure elite terrified of its own people. By transforming the basic human right of citizenship into a weapon of war, the Algerian regime is charting a dangerous course —one that promises further isolation, regional instability, and a tragic era of statelessness for those brave enough to demand a better future.

Algeria’s ‘guillotine of citizenship’: the anatomy of a paranoid regime.
#Algeria ’s revised nationality law grants sweeping powers to strip citizenship from native-born critics, raising concerns over political repression and regional instability www.ynetnews.com/opinions-ana...
#authoritarianism

40 Iranian Doctors and Nurses describe a massacre.
They talked to NYT about their experiences treating wounded protesters. Despite great personal risk, they shared their stories. archive.ph/3CZeF

A range of medical providers participated in the survey, including trauma surgeons, anesthesiologists, orthopedists, nurses and emergency physicians. They messaged us from Gilan Province, on the coast of the Caspian Sea, Hormozgan Province on the Persian Gulf, and from smaller cities and large urban centers, such as Tehran and Isfahan. The images and testimonies we received match accounts from witnesses and human rights groups of a sharp escalation in the authorities' use of force to lethal tactics, including live ammunition and military-grade weapons, on the evening of Jan. 8. They add to a growing body of evidence that the Iranian regime's slaughter of unarmed protesters last month was not lawful policing of political unrest. It was a massacre, and it should be treated as such. Representatives of the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment. All 40 doctors and nurses said they saw injuries indicative of deliberate killings or the intent to inflict serious bodily harm. Many of the accounts we received from the doctors and nurses inside Iran were of children under 18 who were injured or killed. The youngest was a newborn. "A breastfeeding mother was holding her baby when security forces opened fire on their car," a doctor from South Tehran told us. "They arrived at the hospital in that same vehicle, riddled with bullets. The bullet passed through the baby's hand and into the mother's chest."

A nurse from the central city of Isfahan sent us testimony from one boy's father, who described his desperate attempts to save his teenage son's life: "We had gone to the streets to protest. The officers attacked my son, targeting his head and neck with a pellet gun. I begged the riot police to stop. But before my own eyes, they fired the final shot - a live bullet - into his head." The boy died soon after arriving at the hospital. "We buried him as security forces stood watch," his mother said. She described him as "a calm, social and well-mannered boy" who loved soccer. She added that she wants him "to be remembered as a hero, brave, with a pure and kind heart, and full of love for life." At least 209 children were killed in the protests, according to Shiva Amelirad, who represents a network of teachers' unions inside Iran that is looking into the deaths. She said that number is a conservative estimate based on medical evidence and confirmation from victims' relatives, teachers and others, and that the group is investigating more cases. "There is a consistent pattern in many documented cases indicating that children were shot in the head," Ms. Amelirad said. Twenty-three said they saw preteen children who had been seriously injured or killed, and 36 said they saw multiple cases of injured or killed teenagers. Three did not see either.

Many of the doctors and nurses told us they went to great lengths to prevent the Iranian authorities from identifying their patients as protesters - for example, by falsifying their medical records, erasing security camera footage or treating them in private homes. They were worried their patients could be abducted or even killed. Doing so put the medical workers themselves in danger. Many reported that they or their co-workers had been threatened, interrogated or summoned to appear before the authorities. Several said they had colleagues who had been detained. Homa Fathi, a member of the International Independent Physicians and Healthcare Providers Association, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates health and human rights in Iran, told us that dozens of health care providers in Iran are now incarcerated. "Health care workers in Iran have been killed, arrested and tortured," she said. "Many of them are facing harsh trials, prison sentences and a ban on their license just because they tried to help the injured." One of the doctors in Tehran who participated in our survey had previously spoken out publicly about regime pressure on medical staff members. He told us that security agents had warned him that if he didn't keep quiet, they would send him "to the cemetery."

Thirty doctors and nurses witnessed or experienced pressure to restrict or deny medical care to wounded protesters. Eight did not. Two left the question blank. Several doctors we contacted said they were too haunted by what they had seen to take part in our survey. Among those who did respond, many reported experiencing extreme distress, including nightmares, flashbacks, grief, anger and anxiety. A few said they had become suicidal. Many have concluded that they have little choice but to ask the outside world to protect them, along with their patients and other Iranians calling for basic freedoms. They pleaded for international help to ensure such atrocities don't happen again. The doctors and nurses reflected on their experiences treating wounded demonstrators. So far, the international community has done little to put a cost on these crimes. When discussing regime change in Iran earlier this month, President Trump said, "It seems like that would be the best thing that could happen." He has amassed U.S. forces in the region, raising the possibility of military action. Mr. Trump had also warned the Iranian authorities not to kill peaceful protesters, emboldening many to march. But for now, the White House is still negotiating with Iran's leaders over their nuclear program as if these atrocities had never happened, leaving many Iranians, including several of the medical providers we spoke with, feeling betrayed.

As street protests spread across Iran in early January, the authorities turned off the internet. Most of the world didn’t see the bloody crackdown that followed. But Iran’s doctors and nurses did. NYT surveyed Iranian medical workers across 14 cities and 11 provinces… #IranMassacre #Islamism

Pleasure to have you in the club Jamie!

We got the biggest per capita diaspore in North America.

Israel's position here is overly generous. An NGO that is, by its own implicit acknowledgement, incapable of vetting for terrorists should not be operating in a war zone, full stop. Instead of immediately banning MSF, the Israeli government is volunteering to do MSF's vetting work for it. MSF should jump at the chance. After all, Israel is undeniably more reliable in its vetting than is MSF or any other NGO. And that is precisely why MSF and its defenders have refused to take the deal: It would be tantamount to admitting that Israel's information is far more likely to be accurate than anybody else's. The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example, can't seem to tell terrorists from civilians either. And we've known nearly from the beginning of the war that the UN agencies operating in Gaza were practically subsidiaries of Hamas. Admitting that Israel is more reliable a source than anyone else in the theater would also remind the public how much the media have smeared the IDF with false allegations and false reporting-to say nothing of the made-up casualty figures journalistic institutions have run for over two years. And it would suggest that perhaps the entire narrative of the wider conflict has been misleading.

Get used to saying it: ‘Israel was right again’.
The world’s NGO-media complex would rather put untold lives in danger than swallow its pride and admit that the credibility of Israel, and only of Israel, remains intact. www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/... #Jihadism #terrorism #NGOs

Sorry to disappoint you Jamie but I’m a Paddy-Greco, or that was the case the last time I’ve checked…☘️🏛️

Israel's position here is overly generous. An NGO that is, by its own implicit acknowledgement, incapable of vetting for terrorists should not be operating in a war zone, full stop. Instead of immediately banning MSF, the Israeli government is volunteering to do MSF's vetting work for it. MSF should jump at the chance. After all, Israel is undeniably more reliable in its vetting than is MSF or any other NGO. And that is precisely why MSF and its defenders have refused to take the deal: It would be tantamount to admitting that Israel's information is far more likely to be accurate than anybody else's. The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example, can't seem to tell terrorists from civilians either. And we've known nearly from the beginning of the war that the UN agencies operating in Gaza were practically subsidiaries of Hamas. Admitting that Israel is more reliable a source than anyone else in the theater would also remind the public how much the media have smeared the IDF with false allegations and false reporting-to say nothing of the made-up casualty figures journalistic institutions have run for over two years. And it would suggest that perhaps the entire narrative of the wider conflict has been misleading.

Get used to saying it: ‘Israel was right again’.
The world’s NGO-media complex would rather put untold lives in danger than swallow its pride and admit that the credibility of Israel, and only of Israel, remains intact. www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/... #Jihadism #terrorism #NGOs

Unable to get from Mr. Trump what he wants in Ukraine, Mr. Putin will fight on, sinking Russia’s resources ever more deeply into his calamitous war. The cost, in treasure and personnel, will climb ever higher. archive.ph/OQ7Sw #RussiaUkraineWar #trumpism #putinism

President Vladimir Putin of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was many things - brazen land grab, fantasy bred in isolation, czarist cosplay. It was also a plea for respect. After three decades of perceived Western encroachment, Mr. Putin sought to strike back at the agent of Russia's confinement, the United States. A blitzkrieg, he surely surmised, would put America in its place and give Russia the power to shape Europe's destiny. When Mr. Putin spoke, the United States would have to listen. With President Trump's return to the White House, Mr. Putin's bet finally seemed close - after years of failure — to paying off. Mr. Trump appeared eager to wash his hands of the war in Ukraine, claiming he could end it in "24 hours." Even if Mr. Trump did not outright abandon Ukraine, he could be strung along as Russian forces pressed forward on the battlefield. In time, Russia and the United States would restore relations and cooperate — from the Arctic to the Middle East, arms control to trade. America's attitude to Russia would finally acquire common sense. One year later, those hopes have been dashed. As the war grinds on, Mr. Trump's admiration for Mr. Putin has not turned into much that actually benefits Russia. Efforts to normalize the bilateral relationship have gone nowhere: There has been no progress on resuming direct flights or sending a new U.S. ambassador to Moscow. Neither the red-carpet fanfare of the leaders' one-off summit in Alaska last summer nor the backslapping bonhomie of their cronies is a substitute for proper diplomatic ties. Talk aside, the Trump White House has not been good for Russia. For starters, Mr. Trump has scanted Mr. Putin's geopolitical aspirations. After American strikes on Iran in June, Mr. Trump rebuffed Mr. Putin's offer to mediate. Later, Mr. Trump did not even bother to invite the Russian leader to the summit he held in Egypt to celebrate the shaky cease-fire in Gaza. Extra embarrassingly, Mr. Putin had to postpone his own Russia-…

president has also shown little care for Russian partners, allies or spheres of influence. In the Caucasus, seen by the Kremlin as Russia's backyard, Mr. Trump ostentatiously played peace broker between Armenia and Azerbaijan, dispatching Vice President JD Vance to seal the deal. In Venezuela, with the lightning removal of Nicolás Maduro, he showed how powerfully he could menace a Russian dependent. And having assembled what he called a "beautiful armada" in the Persian Gulf, Mr. Trump may well strike Iran again - or take aim at Cuba, another Russian ally. Mr. Trump has interfered with Russian interests in other ways. He has imposed sanctions on Russian oil companies, seized a Russian-flagged tanker and pressed India to stop buying Russian crude. The fragile peace in the Caucasus looks like the prelude to American economic trespass. It's little wonder that Russia's

Mr. Trump is not entirely bad for Russia, of course. The White House and the Kremlin align on several first principles, including a hostility toward the European Union, an aversion to so-called woke culture and the belief that might is right. Mr. Trump's capricious foreign policy has disrupted the transAtlantic relationship, thrown historic commitments into doubt and put everyone on guard. Amid the great global hedge currently underway, Russia may well find more room to maneuver. Trumpian disruption could in time redound to Russian advantage. The problem is that Russia remains hemmed in by its war against Ukraine, entering its fifth year. For all his flip-flopping, Mr. Trump has not handed the country to Russia. If he were to force it into a bad deal now, he would elicit fierce resistance. Mr. Trump's recent reversal of his threat to take Greenland by force suggests that when there is strong enough pushback, he retreats from his maximalist demands. On some level, he seems to understand that success lies in the eyes of the beholder, not just in his own. Unable to get from Mr. Trump what he wants in Ukraine, Mr. Putin will fight on, sinking Russia's resources ever more deeply into his calamitous war. The cost, in treasure and personnel, will climb ever higher. The United States, meanwhile, will continue to shake up the global order - guided not by the allure of a great-power concert with Russia but by the maxim of Trump First. Whatever else that is, it won't look much like respect.

Putin had high hopes for Trump. They have been dashed: The problem is that Russia remains hemmed in by its war against Ukraine entering its fifth year. For all his flip-flopping, Mr. Trump has not handed Ukraine to Russia. If he were to force it into a bad deal now, he would elicit fierce resistance

NE OF THE MOST INSANE STORIES ABOUT PUBLIC school indoctrination I have ever heard comes to us from Ontario. According to reporting from Melanie Bennet and added context from Adam Hummel , here's what appears to have happened. In 2023, Hamilton-Wentworth school district trustee Sabreina Dahab brought a motion to train school officials in how to "resist Zionism" and combat "the ongoing erasure of Palestinian identity, culture and solidarity" (Emphasis added.) The district hired a consulting firm to carry out the training the following year, at a cost to taxpayers of over $70,000. Nearly 9,000 district officials were subject to the training. The training itself involved watching videos, and no questions were permitted. If teachers had questions or concerns, they were to be brought up with "equity officials" privately. Here's where it goes positively off the rails: The district rejected freedom of information requests by parents who wanted to see the training they paid for. Then it destroyed the copies of the video. Not everyone was comfortable with this Soviet-style indoctrination. (No one should have been comfortable with it.) Hummel writes: "According to documents obtained by Bennet, who has been covering this story, the board submitted affidavits arguing that the volume of complaints it has already received (based on a small number of leaked images from the training) constitutes 'harassment' and is 'unmanageable. The board's position, in essence, is that public reaction to the partial leak proves that full disclosure would be harmful."

Further (this story appears to have no bottom), the equity officer in charge of fielding complaints about the training was found by parents to have shared antiSemitic material on social media. The few stills from the video presentation that have leaked focus on Islamophobia and something called "anti-Palestinian racism." One example of anti-Palestinian racism, provided on a slide about "APR in Education," is: "Being called Antisemitic if they are Pro-Palestinian or speak up about APR." This is a neat trick, and it is in line with the wider speech-chilling campaign conducted by pro-Hamas propagandists: It is "racist" to call someone an anti-Semite. Because this idea is ubiquitous among Gaza Westerners, it tells us a few things about members of this movement. First, they exhibit a level of emotional and intellectual fragility that is, frankly, pathetic. This training reportedly showed a map of Israel replaced by the Palestinian flag, and yet "teaching students that Israel is a free democratic state' would render teachers 'racist' in the eyes of the board," Hummel explains. That the "pro-Palestinian" narrative relies on such Stalinism is not unrelated to the fact that much of modern anti-Zionist propaganda was produced by the Soviet Union in the first place. Yet even by the standards of anti-freedom Hamasniks, this scale of reality-aversion in adults is frightening.

Second, the process by which this campaign is being carried out is anti-democratic in the extreme. That means the system will be anti-democratic about everything it does. Israel isn't the exception but the rule. The ultimate target, then, is the Western system of liberty and self-government, with which strident anti-Zionism is entirely incompatible. Third, the terminology is an assault on language. "Anti-Palestinian racism" is a ridiculous, self-contradictory phrase that ought to be laughed out of the room. If it were racism, they could just call it racism. Since it isn't, its proponents have come up with a term that means "pretend "Palestinian' is something it's not." And fourth, absolutely none of the movement's complaints about "policing anti-Israel rhetoric" are to be taken seriously. These lunatics are arguing that openly calling for genocide against the Jews is not only within the bounds of neutral argumentation but that it is fundamental to the identity of what might be called Palestinianism. But saying "Israel is a democratic state" is so "racist" that educators have to be trained not to say it around children. As this type of "equity" training colonizes Western academia at every level of schooling, it's easy to see why these activists want it kept secret. Any self-respecting person would be ashamed to be a part of it.

The emotional and intellectual fragility of anti-Israel activists: This story by @sethamandel.bsky.social about Hamilton-Wentworth school district in Ontario, encapsulates the character of an insane, antisemitic, authoritarian, anti-democratic, Left movement.
www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/...

Military experts say the only Middle Eastern groups known to be capable of such tunnels are Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon, certain factions in Kurdistan, and possibly Islamic State.

Polish officials said the specialists who designed and dug the tunnels had a "high level of expertise". And while experts say it is hard to be sure which groups were involved, they have suggested Kurdish fighters, Islamic State and Iranian-backed proxies as potential culprits. Poland has also suggested that Belarus resorted to hiring the mysterious Middle Eastern specialists because it was seeking new and more inventive methods of sneaking migrants across the border. "Officers of the Podlaskie Border Guard Unit have uncovered a total of four tunnels under the border with Belarus, all in 2025, Lt Col Katarzyna Zdanowicz, from the Polish border force, told The Telegraph. "Physical and electronic security measures at the border, such as thermal imaging cameras and detection systems, allow us to immediately respond to any attempted violations of the state border, even underground ones," he added. Polish authorities discovered one of the largest tunnels, near the village of Narewka in eastern Poland, in mid-December. Migrant tunnel under Poland-Belarus border Poland+..... Border....» Belarus The tunnel between Poland and Belarus Showing a low-resolution version of the map. Make sure your browser supports WebGL to see the full version. It was used by a total of 180 migrants, mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the majority of them arrested after they emerged on the other side. According to Poland, the tunnel was 1.5m high with the entrance on the Belarusian side hidden in a forest. The tunnel ran for around 50 metres on the Belarusian side of the border and for 10 metres on the Polish side.

Russia is sending migrants through underground tunnels from Belarus into Europe as part of its hybrid war on the West. Belarus, a Russian puppet state led by dictator A. Lukashenko, has used specialists from the Middle East with “a high level of expertise” to design the tunnels. archive.ph/pPLYw

For Trump, Military Strike in Iran Could Serve Symbolic Purpose

The Trump administration has debated two plans. One would be a major strike aimed at hitting a huge number of targets over a sustained period of time. Critically, it would also try to decapitate the government by forcing the supreme leader,Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, from power #Islamism #nuclearweapons

The Logical Endpoint of Progressive Paranoia About Jewish Money Gavin Newsom, the California governor and presidential aspirant, is a weathervane whose primary concern at the moment is making his left flank happy. So when he was asked whether he’d

The guilt-by-Jewish-association game is up and running. Jewish people support Jewish groups that support Jewish causes that include the Jewish state.
How far removed from Jews does one have to be to have a shot at winning a Democratic Party primary? We’re starting to find out. #antisemitism

The president's attacks on this legacy have been relentless and all-encompassing. He has turned the federal health department over to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation's most prominent anti-vaxxer. For months, President Trump's Office of Management and Budget all but froze operations at the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. His newly established so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, fired thousands of civil servants from The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a process that was wildly disorganized, frequently unlawful and needlessly cruel. Global health initiatives were also eviscerated. Stacked against these measures, the administration's explanations - which focus on cutting waste and eliminating so-called woke politics from science - have been inadequate and disingenuous. It can be difficult to imagine a future in which American science does not prevail. But, as the president's many critics have warned, institutions like the C.D.C., F.D.A. and N.I.H. will be far more difficult to rebuild than they have been to destroy - especially if their intended beneficiaries lose all faith in them or forget why they existed in the first place. The current administration seems to understand as much. Top officials have taken pains to describe the nation's scientific bodies as corrupt and ineffective and the nation's scientists as elitist and excessively woke. "Science and public health have achieved much more than current leaders seem to recognize," says Tom Frieden, author of "The Formula For Better Health" and president of the public health nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives. "We actually know a lot about how to make America healthier. But very little of that knowledge is in line with what the current administration has done so far."

On his first days in office, the president issued a flurry of executive orders rolling back transgender rights and bringing federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to an abrupt end. By many accounts, the DOGE officials tasked with implementing those orders had little to no understanding of the projects they were supposed to evaluate. "They seem to have confused D.E.I., which is about diversifying the work force, with health equity, which is about reducing health disparities in marginalized communities," Amy Knopf, a professor at Indiana University's School of Nursing, told me. "They're making it so that you can't study certain groups without violating these edicts. But you can't really tackle H.I.V., or any number of other conditions, without looking at those exact groups." In the weeks after the March 20 Massacre (as some of them had taken to calling it, Macapagal and her colleagues began working furiously to cover as much and as many of their salaries as they could. The main conference space morphed into a war room of sorts, as Macapagal's boss, Brian Mustanski, tried to match any open position or bit of unused grant money he heard of with whichever recently defunded staff member who was qualified. Macapagal's own job was saved by one colleague who stepped up without even being asked. "We have some money that we're not using yet, and some work that you could definitely do," the woman explained. "Let me add you to that project." She accepted, and for many months afterward, would tear up just recalling the kindness.

In the past year or so, scientists funded through the National Institutes of Health have developed potential treatments for pancreatic cancer, broke the logjam on Huntington's disease, shepherded a male birth control pill through clinical trials and saved a baby's life with the first personalized gene editing procedure. In a different time and place, any one of those breakthroughs would have been hailed as the triumph of an epoch, and might have lured a new generation of talent to the cause of scientific research. Instead, six years after the pandemic began and one year into the second Trump administration, we have the opposite: seasoned scientists fleeing the profession (or the country, and younger prospects deciding not to pursue it at all. It's impossible to say what new medicine those minds might have developed or what wicked problems their efforts might have solved What seems clear is that Americans have entered a grim new era, one where science itself is a political weapon, rather than a tool for the collective good. It would be simplistic to argue that the two - science and politics - should be wholly disentangled (as a human endeavor that involves trade-offs and requires public support, science is inherently political). But real data and hard, neutral facts still drive the work that most scientists do, and the best of that work should still frame public discourse and ideally, inform public policy. And right now, it does not. This past June, the E.D.A. approved the latest version of PrEP: an injection that patients would only need to receive twice a year and that appeared to work even better than its predecessors at preventing infection. In July, the N.I.H. director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, laid out yet another strategy for eliminating H.I.V. in the United States. Rather than pour limited resources into more basic research, his agency would simply deploy existing PrEP medications. "Why is there any reason to wait?" he asked on his podcast. "Why don't we just re…

In the meantime, his Latin American patients were still avoiding the clinic altogether, months after I.C.E. had descended on the city. He had lost several of them to follow-up care over the summer. The one that troubled him most was a 10-year-old girl from Venezuela who lived in a car with her mother and whose H.I.V. infection might have already progressed to AIDS. "I have not seen her in months," he said. "She could be dead by now." A few miles away in West Chicago, the TaskForce community center was facing similar challenges. They had lost some $500,000 in anticipated funding, thanks not only to state and federal budget cuts, but also to a new reluctance among donors. "We heard a lot of, 'Hey, these dollars that we thought that we could give you we actually can't now, because you're L.G.B.T.Q., which is a no, and BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color], which is also a big no," said the center's director, Chris Balthazar. They were getting by, but the strain of moving through the world with so many targets on their backs was starting to show. One of their regulars, a 15-year-old Haitian boy, had nearly taken his own life after his parents were abruptly deported. And Underwood had detected a new reluctance in some of her L.G.B.T.Q. students. They were not expressing themselves as freely as they had before, she thought. Some mentioned creeping anxieties, when she asked. Others talked about fear. She wanted to prevent those feelings from dimming the light she saw in each of them, but it was complicated. Self-expression and personal safety could cut brutally against each other for a gay or transgender teen, and a lot of her Task Force students had bigger worries in any case. They did not always have enough food to eat or safe places to stay; winter was coming and they needed warm coats. "It's OK," was sometimes all she could think to tell them. "This is nothing new. We're just going to keep on jumping these hurdles, one at a time, until we're free and clear."

The human cost of Trump’s war on science: 13 months into the 2nd Trump administration, science, medicine and public health have been hijacked by a cadre of grifters and ideologues and by the politicians in obvious thrall to both. Federal institutions have been all but dismantled. archive.ph/QM93h

Rafael's SPICE 1000 guidance kits, Elbit Systems' Rampage air-to-ground missiles, Ice Breaker naval cruise missiles, and Israel Aerospace Industries' supersonic Air LORA missiles. One capability which Indian media are reporting that Modi wants to nail down is firing missiles from a far distance out of range of an enemy's air defenses, such as the Israeli air force used in June 2025 against Iran. All of this is happening on top of the fact that India has already been the Jewish state's largest defense purchaser for years, including 34% of total sales from 2020-2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Likewise, the Defense Ministry's International Defense Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) has said that total arms sales to India during this period were worth around $20.5 billion. Israeli officials have noted that from 2012-2017 defense sales between the countries continually exponentially multiplied, reaching $3-4 billion when Jerusalem sold New Delhi the Barak anti-aerial threats system for naval vessels. From 2017-2023, the market remained strong, but cooled somewhat as the countries adjusted to Modi's new "Made in India" policy. However, by 2024, Israel had started investing more directly in India, with many defense companies establishing subsidiaries there.

Major deals mark a turning point in strategic relations: #Israel and #India are set to sign historic defense deals worth up to $10 billion, strengthening military ties with agreements on missiles, drones, and AI as Indian PM Modi visits Jerusalem. www.jpost.com/israel-news/...

China’s fragile future.
How Secure Is the CCP?
www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/chin... #communism #totalitarianism

F or many years, predicting the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party was something of a sport among China watchers. But few serious observers today suggest that China looks unstable. Despite facing numerous challenges, including the implosion of the country's real estate sector since 2021 and high debt loads that have bogged down local government finances, China's political system appears strong. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has a firm hold on all the levers of power, and the country is proving to be competitive, or even dominant, in a growing number of twenty-first-century technologies, such as electric vehicles and biotechnology. Moreover, scholars consistently find overwhelmingly high levels of public support for the CCP. In comparison to the growing fragility and divisiveness of political systems elsewhere, including in the United States, the Chinese regime appears to the outside world as competent and stable-an image that Beijing is eager to project. Two new books challenge this view. In Political Trust in China, the political scientist Lianjiang Li digs deep into survey methodology to question the way that most scholars have measured public support for leaders in Beijing. He concludes that citizens' trust in the regime is weaker than other researchers believe. In Institutional Genes, the economist Chenggang Xu uses a sweeping comparative and historical analysis of China's political institutions to argue that the country's inability to reform them will condemn it to economic stagnation. In Xu's view, the kind of authoritarian rule that worked for China's imperial dynasties is strangling its modern economy Both books offer a needed corrective to the conventional wisdom that the Chinese regime is stable, but neither is definitive. To translate local findings into national claims, Li reinterprets existing data sources in ways that stretch their meaning. Xu's metaphor of "institutional genes," meanwhile, shows that Chinese authoritarian institutions are resistant t…

In Xu's telling, meanwhile, China is today so obsessed with fine-grained surveillance and social control that it is strangling itself economically and socially. The state-dominated economy is inefficient, household income is too low, China's population is declining, and top-down control of personnel and ideology stymies innovation. The ongoing real estate slump, Xu suggests, could even spark "a financial and fiscal crisis." Such an event—or a public health emergency or failed attempt to take Taiwan by force—could crack Xi's veneer of invincibility, spurring those with partial trust to join their compatriots who fully distrust Xi and trigger a spreading movement against the regime. Li does not say what might follow such a trust meltdown, but both his and Xu's theories suggest that a collapse of political order is more likely than a democratic transition. Xu notes that if the regime were to fall, China lacks the resources, including "widespread private property rights, a civil society, and a social consensus on human rights, property rights, and the rule of law and constitutionalism" that it would need to reconstruct itself as a stable democratic system. If trust in the party were to collapse, the only forces able to reimpose order would be either a party faction or the military—neither of which would bode well for China's future. The country would likely undergo a period of painful chaos and end up with some other form of authoritarian rule. Although many U.S. observers and politicians might like to exploit China's fragility to topple the CCP, the implications of these books should serve as a warning. Lacking either the trust or the institutional genes to set up a more stable alternative, a post-CCP authoritarian regime rooted more in raw power than in engineered consensus might be even harder for the West to deal with than the relatively disciplined and strategic regime China has today.®

Both Li’s and Xu’s books imply a bleak future for the party and what may come after it. Li establishes that regime support is connected to the perception that the regime is unassailable, and this image of unassailability is fragile because it depends so much on one man. ##CCP #China #BookReview

From Bad to Worse in Northeast Syria Read this article from foreignpolicy.com with Smry

smry.ai/proxy?url=ht...

The security consequences are already emerging. Al-Hol staff have reported receiving threats from former residents and now live in fear of reprisal attacks. Recently, the head of Iraqi intelligence warned of a resurgence of Islamic State cells in Iraq, citing an increase from 2,000 to 10,000 fighters over the past year. Syria already faces an uphill battle meeting the needs of its citizens in a postwar environment with few resources, raising concerns about how they would handle more radical challenges to the regime of Ahmed al-Sharaa. As the IS waits in the shadows to reconstitute itself, international inaction may provide it the opportunity that it needs.

For years, the SDF, U.N., and U.S. government have called on countries to address indefinite detention in northeast Syria-and warned of the consequences of neglecting this issue. The chaos of the past few weeks was both predictable and preventable. Occurring on the watch of the Syrian government, it raises serious questions about whether this release was the result of intent or ineptitude. Both scenarios are worrisome. While not everyone in al-Hol was a committed Islamic State extremist, many were. Still more have been exposed to a harsh, heavily radicalized environment for seven years, and these civilians will likely require some support transitioning back to their homes. Two divergent regional approaches have emerged in this regard. Syria has seemingly focused on thrusting its citizens back into society in a haphazard manner. Many Syrians previously held in al-Hol have already reportedly returned to their families without proper documentation or support. Iraq has emphasized a formalized rehabilitation and reintegration program for its citizens. Some Iraqis also remained in al-Hol camp. The Iraqi government-which has been in the process of bringing back more than 22,000 of its citizens since 2021—repatriated 191 nationals who wanted to go home last week. Which national approach will be more effective in the long term is yet to be seen, but Iraq's undoubtedly looks more promising at this stage, even if imperfect.

For the few hundred residents—Syrians and Iraqis-that did not leave the camps, the Syrian government implemented a plan this week to send them to a repurposed camp for internally displaced people called Akhtarin in Aleppo province. The UNHCR is supporting this effort, which ultimately aims to reintegrate this population. But it is not clear what will happen to those at Akhtarin who do not voluntarily return to their homes. Already 1,200 Iraqis have reportedly said they do not want to go to Iraq due to outstanding warrants. As for the approximately 20,000 people who disappeared from al-Hol, they have simply been forgotten. These include citizens from 40 countries, many of whom have reportedly moved around Idlib and Aleppo. Some foreigners are trying to return home. Others who might be facing criminal charges in their home countries are unlikely to return. Finally, those who are still committed to the Islamic State may try to rejoin local jihadi groups or even move internationally to other hotbeds of jihadi activity. There is a long history of foreign fighters (and in some cases, their families) moving from conflict to conflict. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of jihadi hot spots in the world today to consider. The smaller Roj camp-which is still under the control of the SDF-also holds around 2,000 foreigners, including many Westerners. Questions remain over the future of these populations, but some are taking their fate into their own hands.

Syria has just witnessed a great escape. Just weeks after a breakout from an Islamic State detention facility in the country’s northeast, more than 20,000 people from al-Hol detention camp, which is known for holding Islamic State-affiliated families, are now unaccounted for. #Syria #ISIS #Jihadism

Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World.
By Justin Marozzi #glykoreads

Ireland's Empire The Roman Catholic Church in the English-Speaking World, 1829-1914

IRELAND, SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY: 1612-1865 Nini Rodgers

This book, alongside those below, have been a fascinating and insightful study of a long neglected period in modern Irish history that helps a casual reader like myself to fathom the origins of today’s modern Irish state and dispel today’s predominant Irish nationalist narrative.

It would be much better for the anti-Zionists personally to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to thoughtfully and knowledgeably engage on this subject. They just wouldn’t be anti-Zionists anymore. www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/...