Nate Schenkkan

Extremely not great

But at this point given how ad hoc the US strategy is, weak/incoherent diplomacy in the region, and how late the Kurdish element is being engaged, I'm not sure what we're going to see in terms of activity.

In sum I would expect Turkey to come out very strongly if it involves the regional PKK affiliates, or appears to be moving towards significant autonomy much less independence. They'll also be looking at the refugee situation and seeking to control the border.

Turkey’s Kurds reject US-Israeli 'designs' in Iran as Netanyahu bets on uprising Israeli PM reportedly wants a Kurdish insurgency in Iran, but the Dem party has called out the war's 'imperialism'

[Deleted a post because I used the wrong link]

Fidan is already speaking out about it: www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkeys...

Seems unlikely this really qualifies as "accidental"

After you became the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, in 2006, your mentor, Jeb Bush, presented you with a sword. What was that about? Chang is a mythical conservative warrior. From time to time, if there’s a big issue going on, you’d see Jeb say, “I’m going to unleash Chang.” He gave me the sword of Chang.

i still find it absolutely fucking incredible that Marco Rubio has a imagined version of Chiang Kai-Shek that he's turned into a ancestor spirit for the GOP

This is what happens when the models scrape Homeland

I thought she was coming from the "Trump is a restrainer" camp, surely she couldn't have been mistaken this entire time

Carney Says Middle East War Shows Death of Rules-Based Order Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his support for US military action in Iran came “with regret” because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order.

And then GAC panicked when it turns out, nobody else can decode fine diplomatese, and the statement read to normies like Canada endorsed bombing Iran

Hence the clarification from Carney today that reads like a u-turn but I suspect wasn’t intended to be

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Great timing given the US just dropped its alliance with the SDF in northern Syria too

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...

Ah so when they said a limited war confined to airstrikes they meant not that at all

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

The gap that's opened up between the military capacity of the United States (unmatched in human history) and its political and diplomatic capacity (none) is frightening

CPJ calls on Swiss authorities to protect Azerbaijani journalist Emin Huseynov - Committee to Protect Journalists New York, February 27, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Swiss authorities to ensure exiled journalist and human rights defender Emin Huseynov’s safety after Huseynov said he was followe...

Azerbaijani journalist says he was surveilled and followed by armed men in Geneva: cpj.org/2026/02/cpj-...

Uh too late?

SCOOP: A suspected Iranian drone attack hit the CIA’s station in Saudi Arabia in what would amount to a significant symbolic victory for the Islamic Republic as it lashes out at U.S. targets and personnel across the Middle East, sources tell Ellen Nakashima and me

So there is some irony in a US government that is very enthusiastic at a personal level about this kind of offshoring/creation of zones, but is also dismantling through its carelessness many of the features that allowed it to flourish.

Dubai is one physical incarnation of this logic, propped up by participation in alliances and feeding off the availability of other places where the wealthiest people can go when they have other needs, allowing them to arbitrage by parking and laundering money through it.

The logic of offshore is to offer discounted tax and regulatory regimes, which can afford to discount because of the protections (including military, but also rule of law in other jurisdictions) built into the global system.

Bollywood stars don't all live in Dubai; they may have holiday homes there. The mafia used to be based there. Failson bankers and tax dodgers of all kinds, amidst the hard working, exploited migrant working class. I don't know if any of their govts will do much to protect them, in any event.

Opinion: Two wrongs don’t make a right in the Iran war U.S. administration has no apparent plan for the complicated day after in Iran, and its people deserve better

“Iranians deserve far better than the regime that has ruled them. They deserve equally better than an intervention that treats their future as an afterthought.”
www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti... #Iran

Get in loser, we're building a single-party state apparatus

"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" is an iconic line but perhaps worth remembering it is uttered by the villain

Oh this is something I've been genuinely curious about

Keir Starmer is once more locked in a death battle with his mortal enemy, Keir Starmer.

US sanctions Rwanda's military and top officials over support for M23 rebels in Congo The U.S. imposes new sanctions on Rwanda’s military and four top commanders over support for the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo. On Monday, the U.S.

Meanwhile over here the US sanctioned top Rwandan military officials for supporting M23. Seems like the much-feted December peace agreement didn't stick apnews.com/article/us-r...

It's gonna look great on the shows, what could go wrong

Ankara has complicated but stable relations with Teheran and a long policy (pre-Erdogan) of opposing intervention in the region; they issued a condolence statement for Khamenei, for example

Not to get all "say what you will about the tenets of national socialism" but at least our archetypal calamitous foreign interventions had theories of change behind them

These guys really did just start a war without an idea as to what they aimed to achieve