Nicholas Danforth

This is excellent.

Can Turkey Make Multicultural Authoritarianism Work? Erdogan’s negotiations with the PKK seek peace and possibly pluralism without democracy. Will they succeed?

Some thoughts here from me on Ankara's peace talks with Öcalan and the sociopolitical imagination&desires behind it:

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/30/t...

There’s More Than One Way to Build a Bomb Iran doesn’t need to rebuild its damaged facilities to sprint for a nuclear weapon.

Me in @foreignpolicy.com.

The Trump administration's claim that Iran would need "years" to rebuild its previous nuclear program is like asserting that an unlocked bank vault would be impervious to a cyberattack.

It’s true but misses the point.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/25/i...

Moyn's Muddle on Ukraine Moyn makes both historical and moral errors in his analysis, and at times he uncritically adopts Putin’s perspective.

www.liberalcurrents.com/moyns-muddle...

For the afternoon crowd: I'm in @liberalcurrents.com today taking issue with Sam Moyn's analysis of the origins of the Russo-Ukraine War.

I also critique his (and others') contradictory desire for an int'l system based on spheres of influence and his desire/

I mean, Calhoun was way more than just entangled

The perverse result of this kind of guilt-by-association gotcha game is to actually downplay just how pervasive these entanglements are.

There's a maddening kind of progressive public scholarship that revels in showing how the history of various things is "entangled" with racism - without ever quite defining "entangled" or engaging with the fact that in America or Europe everything, good or bad, is historically entangled with racism

Biden’s Team Lied About Gaza. It’s Time to Hold Them Accountable. Impunity for abetting war crimes weakens U.S. democracy.

"The foundational lie upon which the Biden administration’s Gaza policy was based was that the enormous harm inflicted on civilians in Gaza was unintentional. The truth is that inflicting civilian harm is part of Israel’s strategy."

Matt Duss in Foreign Policy

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/18/b...

Yeah there are a lot of great articles to be written about how terrible US policy in the Middle East is. The fact its conducted out of US embassies though doesnt seem like a big reveal.

I love the idea of a whole article explaining the widely understood features of an embassy in the most conspiratorial tone possible. It serves as a site for political meetings! and coordinates diplomatic and military activity! Demonstrating significant US interest in Lebanon and the Middle East!

Coming to this from an interest in colonial genocide, but a conclusion that imposes itself is that the Holocaust isn’t a paradigm genocide. Taking it for one has consequences.

I keep harping on it, but this is why its so important to get the history of genocide right:

foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/21/t...

Empress Farah Pahlavi and the Myth of the Secular Shah Both admirers and critics see Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty as the embodiment of pro-Western modernization. But was it?

A fascinating article from Perin Gürel on Farah Pahlavi and the politics of Westernization in Iran

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/11/i...

If that last statement is true, it would be very Francis Fukuyama-esque.

This kind of 180 degree turn that gives everyone whiplash almost never works out how it’s intended, particularly in a country like Turkey.

Arguably the writing has been on the wall for a while

Instead of multicultural democracy, Erdogan seems interested in consolidating a new model of multicultural authoritarianism, with Ocalan as the Kurdish Kadyrov.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate Partners Dismantling Afghan immigration policies and CARE undermines U.S. security.

And Erin McFee on how eliminating CARE is a betrayal of America's Afghan allies and a threat to American security

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/11/i...

Empress Farah Pahlavi and the Myth of the Secular Shah Both admirers and critics see Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty as the embodiment of pro-Western modernization. But was it?

A fascinating article from Perin Gürel on Farah Pahlavi and the politics of Westernization in Iran

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/11/i...

On the success of Turkish foreign policy A stable country in a tumultuous region?

New Kulturkampf! Selim and I argue that over the last few years Turkish foreign policy has gotten more competent and less aggressive at the same time a lot of other countries have gotten more aggressive and less competent.

kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/on-the-suc...

Fahrelnissa Zeid’s Lost Portrait of Donald Trump by Nergis Abıyeva (1) Fahrelnissa Zeid, Portrait of Donald Trump, ca. late 1980s. Image reproduced in Zeit Magazin .  It has long been rumo...

www.stambouline.info/2020/11/fahr...

Israel Is Sowing Chaos to Secure Displacement in Gaza By making Gaza unlivable, Netanyahu has laid the groundwork for ethnic cleansing.

Whatever cease-fire agreements are discussed or signed in the coming weeks or months, Netanyahu’s policies have already successfully laid the groundwork for the Gazan population’s forced displacement.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/08/i...

Israel Is Sowing Chaos to Secure Displacement in Gaza By making Gaza unlivable, Netanyahu has laid the groundwork for ethnic cleansing.

Whatever cease-fire agreements are discussed or signed in the coming weeks or months, Netanyahu’s policies have already successfully laid the groundwork for the Gazan population’s forced displacement.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/08/i...

How to Sell a Clash of Civilizations The incoherence of Samuel Huntington’s famous thesis is also its power.

Samuel Huntington’s ideas have been mocked by those who insist his concept of civilization is too incoherent to meaningfully explain the fault lines of global conflict. But that’s missing the point.

How to Sell a Clash of Civilizations The incoherence of Samuel Huntington’s famous thesis is also its power.

“Western civilization” has helped reconcile rival forms of chauvinism: New Atheists who condemn Muslim immigration as a threat to Enlightenment secularism can join ranks with Christian fundamentalists who see Muslim immigration as a new front in the Crusades
foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/27/s...

Great piece that underscores just how important Huntington's influence has been in the rise of contemporary authoritarianism and illiberalism around the world

Dramatic oil painting of Joshua Chamberlain, sabre drawn, leading a bayonet charge down the slope of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, against the 15th Alabama. In so doing, he and the 20th Maine stayed true to the orders of Vincent Strong to "hold the ground at all hazards," and saved the Union flank at a critical moment of the battle

Forgot to post this yesterday, but:

Happy Effete, Liberal College Professor Saves The Union Day to all who celebrate

How to Sell a Clash of Civilizations The incoherence of Samuel Huntington’s famous thesis is also its power.

“Western civilization” has helped reconcile rival forms of chauvinism: New Atheists who condemn Muslim immigration as a threat to Enlightenment secularism can join ranks with Christian fundamentalists who see Muslim immigration as a new front in the Crusades
foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/27/s...

How to Sell a Clash of Civilizations The incoherence of Samuel Huntington’s famous thesis is also its power.

"In this sense, mapping Huntington’s civilizational categories or quibbling about their incoherence misses the point. From a civilizational perspective, where you draw the lines is less important than the very act of drawing them. The chauvinism is the point."

foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/27/s...

I think the ideal MAGA foreign policy would be finding a way to screw over Israel while still jailing and deporting people here for criticizing it.

Any discussion of Trump's policies toward Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine really needs to account for how both conflicts play in America's culture wars.