Was there a strategy?

UPDATED 8:53am: We said last week the risk, once started, is Trump chickening out. As of this morning our time, Trump chickened out. Trump always chickens out (TACO). Which, here, long term, is disastrous.

"President Trump has created the conditions for another quagmire in the Middle East, and the question is whether American military excellence can rescue him from his own impulsiveness and incompetence.

"Here is the present situation, in a nutshell: The United States and Israel have established absolute air dominance over the nation of Iran. ... The intention of the air campaign is clear: to destroy the regime’s capacity to harm its neighbours while also creating the conditions for a revolution on the ground. ...

"So why, then, is Trump lashing out at American allies? Why was he 'shocked' that Iran struck Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait in response to American attacks?

"Perhaps the answer lies in a Wall Street Journal report from last Friday. According to The Journal, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Trump that Iran might attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz and Trump shrugged off the threat and launched the attack anyway. ...

"But Iran did not capitulate. ... Instead, it has effectively closed the strait, and it’s reportedly done so without choking off its own oil exports. In other words, while other nations can’t ship oil through the strait, Iran still is.

"Iran ... could well emerge from the conflict with its regime intact (and perhaps even more hard-line) and its power over the world economy undiminished. ...

"Trump launched a major war on his own initiative while announcing competing and potentially contradictory war aims. Is the goal regime change? Unconditional surrender? Or is it much narrower — the destruction of Iran’s missile and drone forces, sinking its navy, stopping its nuclear programme and destroying its ability to wage war through its proxy forces, including Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and the kaleidoscope of allied militias in Syria and Iraq. ...

"Even when wars are carefully planned, with allies brought on board and a majority of the public in support, they are still highly volatile and unpredictable. ...

"My great concern is that Trump has [instead] created the conditions for failure. ... And now, dismayed that the war has not resulted in the regime’s immediate capitulation or destruction, he’s flailing about, once again threatening the viability of NATO if our allies don’t come and bail him out from a war they did not start and did not ask for.

"As an American, I want our forces to succeed, once they are committed. I want to see the military open the Strait of Hormuz as quickly and painlessly as possible. I want to see the Iranian regime collapse and replaced by a democracy. That regime is loathsome. It’s an enemy of the United States. It deserves to fall. If it does, I will cheer its demise.

"At the same time, however, my patriotism can’t blind me to reality. This is not how our democracy should go to war. Trump is not the right man to lead our nation into battle. People I respect applaud Trump for his courage in taking on Iran. But I don’t see courage. I see recklessness. I see thoughtlessness.

"I see a man who plunged a nation into a conflict without fully comprehending the risks. I see a man full of hubris after achieving success in much more limited military engagements. And he’s now counting on two of the world’s most competent militaries to essentially bail him out.

"He’s counting on them accomplishing a mission without clear precedent in military history: destroying a hostile regime and forcing its compliance entirely from the air and sea, and to do so quickly enough that the economic pain doesn’t overshadow the military gains. ...

"Trump has only himself to blame. He led America into an unconstitutional war. And now he’s compounding that sin by proving to be every bit as reckless a commander as he is a president."

~ David French from his column 'Trump Has Only Himself to Blame' 

"Either Donald Trump holds his nerve, crushes the Iranian regime, rides out the oil shock and reopens the Strait of Hormuz, or he and America are finished, exposed as unserious, fickle and incapable of forward planning, a superpower manquée felled by drone-wielding barbarians."

~ Allister Heath from his column 'This is a turning point in history, the moment the West could be lost'

"Morally it was entirely justifiable to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran. ... Whether or not it was tactically correct [or strategically mapped out] ... only history will tell.

"As much as those against the war will be wanting Trump to lose, to embarrass him, this is a very narrow and suicidal position. ...

"Overthrowing the regime would be a success; weakening it so it falls due to domestic pressure (including from the Kurdish north) would be a partial success --- but emboldening it even if its ability to project abroad is significantly weakened, would be ... a victory for the regime, and a victory for its proxies.

"For it would embolden Iran and its proxies to attack not just in the Middle East, but beyond ... This would make us all less safe, it would embolden Islamists across the world to promote their ideology, and for a few to be willing to use force to terrify us all. ...

"At this stage the biggest risk is that Trump chickens out, and wants a 'deal.' There is no 'deal' with those who want you dead, who want your country dead and another dead. As much as the international law purists want pontification from the Western world about the legality of the war on Iran ..., that horse has bolted."

~ Liberty Scott from his post 'Whether your agree with it or not, the US has to win in Iran'

"But as with Bush II's Iraq War, the question to come is: do they know what the hell they're going to do next. With this administration, that's unlikely .... So it will need every circumstance to go the way of those Iranians celebrating [in these photos]. As Eliot Cohen says, 'Something of an exercise in ambivalence here. I would like to see the Iranian regime go down hard -- and am not confident Trump knows what he is doing.'

"Let's [still] hope with crossed fingers for a lion of freedom to arise from the attacks."

~ PC from the 2 March post Iranians: Yearning to breathe free!

UPDATE: Posted last night from the White House press corps, and now going viral on Twitter:

 

International Women's Day in Iran

It was International Women's Day earlier this week.

An appropriate time to be reminded that Iran executed approximately 64 women in 2025. 

Reasons for execution do include murder, but also such outrages as: 

• not wearing the Islamic veil ;
• not wanting to marry their relatives;
• not accepting beatings from their husband;
• having different political beliefs.

"Fortunately," being stoned to death for "crimes" such as adultery has not happened since 2000. Too late for 20-year-old Zoleykhah Kadkhoda, sentenced to be stoned to death in August 1997 after being convicted of "sexual relations outside marriage." But she was one of the "lucky" ones. After a botched execution, Zoleykhah was found alive in a morgue. (And following international pressure, her death sentence was lifted, and Iranian authorities informed Amnesty International she was released on November 26, 1997.)

Reasons for threatened executions today include not singing the regimes' National Anthem in the women's Asian Cup soccer tournament in Australia, following which the whole team of non-vocalisers were branded as “wartime traitors” and threatened with execution -- with their families being held hostage against their return.

Given these multiple and still ongoing horrors, an Iranian-born expat feminist "want[s] to clarify a few things for people in the West about the current war."

1. We don't expect you to be pro-war. There are many reasons to oppose it, and we can discuss them. ... But don't use Iranians' lives and wellbeing as a reason to oppose the war. Inclusion 101: listen to our voices (and amplify them if you truly care). Don't assume you know our lived experiences better than we do. 

2. The general sentiment among Iranians, both inside and outside Iran, is still positive as of now. Of course there’s nuance and many different views on specific aspects. But that doesn't make us "pro-war." 

3. We’ve been calling for humanitarian military intervention because every other method has simply failed over decades, leaving far more casualties than some wars. It’s not an easy choice. We believe it’s the only one left. 

4. We don't blindly or naively support these operations. We support them only to the extent that we believe they serve as the humanitarian intervention we've been calling for. (Sure, some naive people exist, but don't cherry-pick them to paint all of us.) 

5. Iranians generally understand what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria far better than most in the West. They’re our neighbours. Think about whether you may come off as condescending when you “whitesplain” these things to us. 

6. If you oppose the war, you must do so without supporting the Islamic Regime. It may feel easy to just oppose everything, but if you offer no real, effective way to end the oppression, your opposition effectively supports the regime. 

7. If you doubt Iranians support intervention against the Islamic Regime, remember: the regime’s very first response to the war was to shut down the internet. Their propaganda machine still has full access, while only a small fraction of Iranians have unstable, unreliable ways to get online.

PS: Masih Alinejad reports [confirmed by AFP]: 

This is the first reaction from inside Iran to the news that Mojtaba Khamenei has replaced his father as 'Supreme Leader.'
People are standing on their balconies chanting: 'Death to Mojtaba.' A nation is telling the world: we will not accept another inherited dictatorship.

"Death to America" is now a categorical imperative, apparently

 

According to The New York Times, Ali Larijani has effectively 

been running Iran since January 2026. He was in “charge of

 crushing, with lethal force, the recent protests demanding the 

end of Islamic rule.” He is now the key power broker in Iran’s transition.

Larijani is a Ph.D. in Western Philosophy and a specialist

on Immanuel Kant. He wrote his dissertation on Kant and 

three published books [on the German Philosopher].

"Religious fanaticism and radical subjectivism are two sides of the same false coin. One enables another: 

    "Radical subjectivism annihilates metaphysics.
    "The religious fanatic fills his 'void of reality' with his arbitrary assertions (God, miracles, angels, devils, afterlife, etc)."

~ Paulius Lebedevic [hat tip Stephen Hicks, Quote-Unquote Marrk-Goldblatt]

"Ideas have consequences - and in today's volatile world (March 2026), with US-Israel strikes escalating against Iran, regime continuity under power broker Ali Larijani, Russia's enduring war footing in Ukraine, and multipolar fractures everywhere, the intellectual foundations rejecting liberal democracy in favour of "higher duty" and civilisational destiny stand out starkly.
    "In Russia, Alexander Dugin supplies the metaphysical fireworks: a heady mix of Heidegger, Nietzsche, and traditionalism remixed into Eurasianism and his "Fourth Political Theory." ... Duty isn't optional-it's ontological, an existential imperative justifying sacrifice, expansion, and absolute obedience to the state as civilisational guardian. ...
    "[And so] with Iran, where Ali Larijani -- the current top power broker effectively steering the regime ... -- is a genuine Kant scholar .... 

    "Operating within Shia theocratic-revolutionary Islamism, Larijani's Kantian toolkit emphasises deontology: i.e., absolute duty over personal happiness or utility, and reason's limits that 'make room for faith.' This lends philosophical rigour to prioritising collective obligation to the Islamic Republic-categorical imperatives of regime preservation, anti-hegemonic destiny, and order -- over Lockean individual liberties or empirical critique. 

    "Lethal force against dissent or external threats? Not mere power grab, but duty-bound necessity to sustain the higher moral-political order.
    "The parallel is striking: Both reject the British Enlightenment path (Locke, Smith, Mill) that grounds secular democracy in individual rights, free markets, and a limited state that serves citizens. 

    Dugin does it with apocalyptic, anti-modern mysticism and civilisational clash. Larijani does it with measured, pragmatic deontological reasoning adapted to clerical-authoritarian stability.
    "Russia gets the wild-eyed prophetic theorist; Iran gets the calculating insider philosopher. Yet both scaffold regimes where the individual is subordinated to a transcendent collective fate - whether empire or revolutionary faith—precisely when global power shifts demand such justifications.
    "Philosophical coincidence? Or a deeper pattern in how anti-liberal thought sustains authority amid crisis?"

~ Paul Steeper from his comment 'In Our Current Geopolitical Moment - A Contrast of Anti-Liberal Scaffolds: Dugin's Eurasian Destiny in Russia vs. Larijani's Kantian Duty in Iran' [hat tip Stephen Hicks]

Iranians: Yearning to breathe free!

In Auckland yesterday we woke to news that Iran's theocratic rulers were dead and dying. 

Within hours, Iranians in Auckland had gathered to celebrate. (Yes, those are Israeli and US flags being waved below, and pictures of a dead Ayatollah being celebrated). 

This was in complete contrast to the hand wringing going on in the homes of (to pick just two people) Helen Clark and Antōnio Guterres, who were quick to bemoan attacks on the regime that had slaughtered at least 35, 000 Iranian innocents -- which they'd ignored.

So too had Iranians in many other parts of the world. Not least in Iran. (Click through for posts and videos.)

It seems the only place these murdering bastards are mourned are in the homes and offices of people with Pro-Palestinian t-shirts in the cupboard and keffiyeh on their hat rack. These people "have no shame," observes Brendan O'Neill. "They said nothing when thousands of Iranians were slaughtered by the theocratic regime. Yet now they’re crying because some regime goons were killed in airstrikes. These people are just apologists for tyranny."

Given the Iranian regime's role in supporting world terrorism, Islamofascism and in trying to destroy western life (in every way possible) -- on raining death and destruction on the world for 47 years -- then if regime change is successful in Iran -- if! -- then it would be the single most momentous geopolitical change for the better since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But as with Bush II's Iraq War, the question to come is: do they know what the hell they're going to do next. With this administration, that's unlikely (it hasn't even bothered to seek Congressional approval, which is constitutionally required). So it will need every circumstance to go the way of those Iranians celebrating above people. As Eliot Cohen says,  "Something of an exercise in ambivalence here. I would like to see the Iranian regime go down hard -- and am not confident Trump knows what he is doing."

Let's hope with crossed fingers for a lion of freedom to arise from the attacks.

"The cause of Iran is the cause of humanity."

"Imagine watching women fling off their hijabs in glorious defiance of the cruel mullahs who rule over them and feeling nothing. Imagine seeing brave youths swarm the streets to confront the tyrants who oppress them and just looking the other way. ...

"The shameful, tight-lipped caginess of progressives in response to the glorious revolt in Iran is more than cowardice – it’s pathology. These people are so lost in the maze of moral relativism that they can’t bring themselves to criticise an Islamic regime. They’re so mind-screwed by intersectionality that the sight of young women throwing their hijabs on to open fires is more likely to baffle than excite them. ...

"The extraordinary valour of the young in Iran has exposed the moral bewilderment of the young in the West. Inculcated with that cruel, truthless idea that ‘All cultures are equally valid’, this new generation is struck dumb by a fiery foreign revolt against an Islamic government. ...

"Everything will change if the ayatollah classes fall. Hamas and Hezbollah, already battered by the Jewish nation’s resistance against their regime of terror, will be starved of resources. Israel will breathe easier. Russia’s wings will be clipped as its key, crucial ally in the Middle East is laid to rest by the very people it oppressed. A chastened Russia will be to the benefit of all Europeans, not least the long-suffering people of Ukraine.

"The West will be that bit freer, too. Free from the Iranian regime’s exporting of terror and its exploitation of mosques and charities to spread its misanthropic creed through our societies. ...

"The cause of Iran is the cause of humanity. Those brave souls are fighting first and foremost for themselves, as they should. After 47 years in the medieval gloom of Islamist rule, they deserve to see the light of liberty. But their revolt, their valour, their unshakeable yearning for freedom is a gift to the world, too. A stunning defeat for the forces of Islamism, delivered by women whose hair flows freely and men who want the right to think for themselves – it is exactly what humanity needs right now."

~ Brendan O'Neill from his column 'Iran's uprising and the moral bewilderment of Western youth'

"Pics like these almost make me want to start smoking in solidarity." ~ Amy Peikoff

"Iran’s Islamic Republic is no ordinary autocracy—it’s a theocratic prison-state exporting death while devouring its citizens."

"As of January 12, 2026, Iran stands at a historic precipice. What began as scattered demonstrations in late December 2025 over skyrocketing inflation, currency collapse, and economic despair has exploded into the largest nationwide uprising since the 1979 Islamic Revolution—and arguably the most serious challenge to the Islamic Republic in its 47-year history. ...

"Chants of 'Death to the Dictator' (targeting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) echo alongside calls for the return of the Pahlavi monarchy, symbolised by the pre-1979 lion-and-sun flag. Strikes cripple markets, universities burn with student fury, and reports from human rights groups document thousands arrested, hundreds (possibly thousands) killed by security forces using live ammunition, and hospitals overwhelmed by gunshot wounds.

"The regime’s response has been savage ...

"This is not merely an 'economic protest' or reform movement. At its core, Iranians are rebelling against the suffocating fusion of clerical theocracy and state socialism that has crushed liberty, prosperity, and dignity for generations. ...

"Iran’s Islamic Republic is no ordinary autocracy—it’s a theocratic prison-state exporting death while devouring its citizens. ...

"The regime’s foreign aggression compounds the horror. Tehran bankrolls terrorist proxies that slaughter innocents and wage war on liberty [across the Middle East: Shi-ite fighters in Syria; PMF forces in Iraq;] Hamas’s October 7, 2023, atrocities in Israel; Hezbollah’s rocket barrages on civilians; the Houthis’ attacks on global shipping. These groups—armed, trained, and funded by Iran—hide behind human shields, commit rape and torture, and pursue jihadist domination. Israel’s repeated defeats of these proxies (through precision strikes and resilience) have humiliated Tehran, shattering illusions of regional hegemony.

"Defeated abroad, the mullahs now unleash fury at home. The current uprising—sparked by economic collapse but fuelled by decades of repression—has seen security forces open fire on unarmed crowds, including families and the elderly. ...

"Iran’s savagery stems from Islam itself—not as a personal faith, but as a totalising political-religious doctrine demanding submission. ... Islam’s core texts call for jihad, infidel subjugation, and harsh punishments. From stonings to apostasy executions, these elements inspire terror waves: 9/11, Bataclan, ISIS caliphate horrors. ...

"Iran’s theocracy exemplifies this incompatibility with modernity: liberty is criminalised, women enslaved under veils, economy strangled by ideology. The uprising’s core demand—rejecting clerical rule—strikes at Islam’s fusion of mosque and state. ...

"Iran’s uprising is humanity’s cry against tyranny: clerical fascism fused with state socialism, fuelled by Islam’s dogmatic conquest ethos, shielded by Western leftist cowardice. The regime funds terror abroad while slaughtering at home; proxies fall, so oppression intensifies. ...

"The free world cannot afford denial. Iran’s people fight for what we take for granted—liberty. Ignoring them betrays them and ourselves. The time for harsh truths is now. The regime teeters; history will judge who stood for freedom and who looked away."

~ Roberto Rachewsky from his post 'The Axis of Oppression: Iran, Islam, and the Postmodern Left’s Betrayal of Freedom'

Recognition => Consequences

"Keir Starmer has announced the UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state. Several other countries have done likewise.

"I think the consequences of this will be very bad.

"There will be even more Muslim terrorism worldwide. It evidently works.

"There will be more use of tactics like taking hostages and livestreaming murders and torture for political effect by non-Muslim groups and states, too. These tactics evidently work.

"Those people who think that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians still won’t get to see what actual genocide looks like, but Israel will be more willing than before to kill Palestinian civilians in order to destroy Hamas. Israel has lost a major motive for restraint. ...

"I do not wish for any of this. I just think it is what is likely to happen."

~ Natalie Solent from her post 'Consequences'

Niall Ferguson: Osama bin Laden’s Posthumous Victory

"Comparing the world today with that of 24 years ago, I am tempted to say that bin Laden lost the war on terror but is winning the clash of civilisations. ...

"It is not just that the West has been successfully penetrated by an antagonistic civilisation that fundamentally rejects the fundamental division between religion and politics - church and state - that lies at the heart of both Christianity and Judaism. The West is also being geopolitically outmanoeuvred by 'the rest' in just the way Huntington foresaw*.

"Contrast the global order after 9/11 with the global order today. We have come a long way since NATO secretary-general George Robertson’s statement on September 11, 2001 - 'Our message to the people of the United States is . . . "We are with you." '

"In the past three years, Zbig Brzezinski’s worst-case scenario has come about. 'Potentially, the most dangerous scenario,' he wrote in 'The Grand Chessboard' (1997), would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘antihegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by 'complementary grievances' Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that grand coalition has come into being, with North Korea as a fourth member. The 'Axis of Upheaval' (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) are now cooperating in military, economic and diplomatic ways. Moreover, the Trump administration’s combative treatment of American allies (the European Union, Japan, South Korea) and neutrals (Brazil, India, and Switzerland), not least with respect to trade policy, is alienating not only the traditionally nonaligned but also key partners.

'The upshot is that Israel is now virtually alone in fighting against the Islamists, so that even the United States wants plausible deniability when, as this week, the Israeli Air Force strikes the leadership of Hamas in the Qatari capital, Doha.

'The point is that the clash of civilisation continues. Now ask yourself: Who’s winning? 

...
"[C]omparing the world today with that of 24 years ago, I am tempted to say that bin Laden lost the war on terror but is winning the clash of civilisations. That’s not to say his particular brand of Salafist jihadism is winning; it can even be argued that it’s in decline. Bin Laden’s creed was always too uncompromising to form alliances of convenience. By contrast, the pro-Palestinian 'global intifada' is much more omnivorous, and can easily absorb the old left (Marxism and pan-Arabism) and the new (anti-globalism and wokeism). ...

"At the same time, Western civilisation today is so much more divided than it was 24 years ago. The public response to 10/7 illuminated the divisions. Whereas older voters generally remain more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian, younger cohorts have swung the other way. Perhaps that’s because to Gen-Z, 9/11 is a faint memory - as distant as the Cuban Missile Crisis and Kennedy’s assassination were to my generation. But it’s also because the Islamists have done such a good job of co-opting the campus radicals, somehow overriding the cognitive dissonance in slogans such as “Queers for Palestine,” while at the same time tapping the antisemitism that still lurks on the far right. ...

"Walking the streets of New York this week, I felt old. To my children, my students, and my employees, 9/11 is not a memory. It is not even an historical fact. It is something people argue about on social media. ...

"It has taken me all these years to understand that 9/11 really was a clash of civilisations. And it has taken me until this week finally to face the reality that ours is losing."

~ Niall Ferguson from his post commemorating September 11, 2001: 'Osama bin Laden’s Posthumous Victory'

* Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntiongton, whose seminal essay on “The Clash of Civilizations” was published in 1993, aligning with the Princeton scholar Bernard Lewis, who had long argued that Islam was chronically unable to modernise.

20 years after 7/7

UPDATE, 14/7: 

"Have we learned the lessons of 7/7? So begins every trite radio and TV discussion today as we mark 20 years since four homegrown jihadists blew themselves up on London’s transport network and took 52 innocent souls with them.
    "Going by much of the commentary, you’d think this was a purely logistical, security question. There’s a long piece on the BBC website, talking about how the police and the security services were forced to up their game after the London Bombings, the new powers they now enjoy as a consequence, the attendant concerns over civil liberties, etc.
    "The words ‘Islamist’ and ‘jihadist’ do not appear once in the piece, even as it details the evolving ‘extremist’ threat posed first by al-Qaeda and then the ‘self-styled Islamic State’. There is often a stubborn refusal, a stammering hesitation, to mention what flavour of ‘extremism’ most menaces us – a cowardly tic that was skewered best by Morrissey: ‘An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?’
    "This attempt to brush over the I-word – to blithely ignore the religious, ideological character of those hellish bombings two decades ago – is everywhere today. The deadliest terror attack on UK soil since Lockerbie – the deadliest terror attack on London ever – is being talked about as if it were motivated by some vaguely defined form of ‘hate’ or ‘division’, rather than a global Islamist movement."

~ Tom Slater from his post '7/7 and the refusal to confront Islamist terror'

"'Business as usual.' That was the phrase of stoic courage made famous in the London blitz, and 

typified in the photo to the right. 'Business as usual' is the quiet bravery of offering two fingers to 

aggressors who simply do not understand what makes human life sacred, and human effort valuable.

"The main reason so many people fear Islam is all the terrorism carried out by Muslims. The London bombings of twenty years ago are but one entry in a long, long list. Muslims are much more prone to commit acts of terrorism than any other group in the world. This has been true for forty years.

"No, this does not mean that all or most Muslims are terrorists. As I have often said, some of the bravest people in the world are Muslims who know that the terrorists can find them and their families and fight them anyway.

"No, this does not mean it is decent behaviour to buttonhole your Muslim work colleague and harangue him or her for the crimes of their co-religionists.

"It does mean that unless and until the Muslim world confronts the fact that most terrorism is Islamic terrorism, the non-Muslim world is rational to view Muslims with extra suspicion and to discriminate against them in matters of security. The idealistic refusal of the Western part of the non-Islamic world (or rather its political class) to do this is folly, a folly that will eventually backfire on Muslims living in the West.

~ Natalie Solent from her post 'The main reason so many people fear Islam'

"Clearly 'the whole of Islam' did not bomb London, or Madrid, or Istanbul, or Jakarta, or Bali, or New York. But there is a world-wide trend there, don't you think, that we should not ignore. One that needs to be taken seriously, that needs to be condemned.

"The culture of Islam fundamentalism needs to be condemned, as I argued here briefly just the other day before all this happened, and here some weeks ago. ...

"But it's not enough to just condemn it. Islam must be reformed, and the hate-success, clitorectomies-for-everybody, kill-the-west culture that has fomented nothing but hatred and poverty across the Muslim world firmly rejected. Witness the effect that the sisters of Robert McCartney had in speaking out against Irish violence — by saying "NO MORE!" they brought the hope of ending what once seemed un-ending. Only a like rejection from within is ever going to change the culture of Islam.

"Second, Islam needs a Reformation. Urgently. As I pointed out here and here four years ago to noisy dissent, unlike the West, Islam never had a Reformation, and 1.4 billion Muslims and at least 750 Londoners are the poorer for that today. Islam never had a Renaissance. It never had an Aquinas to liberate science, thought and life from its religious shackles. Crikey, Islam doesn't even have a New Testament saying that all the God-awful and God-ordained killing in that earlier collection of papyrus is no longer necessary. Islamic culture needs to embrace Enlightenment values, and it needs to do so damn quickly.

"It needs its own McCartney sisters and its own Aquinas. Until it gets them the culture stands condemned, with smoking ruins and a trail of corpses across the west as sad monuments to its destructive power."

~ Me from my post 'Condemning a Culture'

"The Islamic terrorists who commit these atrocities are not the poor or downtrodden of the Muslim world, they are its best and brightest. What sort of culture has its best and brightest commit multiple murder, while its poor and downtrodden flee (when they can) to find a better life.

"Freedom's enemies have many faces, but one fundamental evil: hatred of the good for being the good. The lietmotif of nihilist hatred is a "radical rejection of the good, absolutely and in principle; rejection of what is good by any standard and by all standards, rejection of good as such. The emotional expression of nihilism is 'hatred of the good for being the good'."

~ Me from my post 'Business As Usual'

"Good guys can't believe nihilism. They can't imagine that anyone could accept nihilism, let alone try to practice nihilism, let alone cultivate in himself a hatred of the good. The good guys' naiveté on this point is their main strategic weakness: how do you fight enemies you can't even believe exist?"

~ Michael Miller from his post 'Nihilist Mutants'

• "Londoners are so wonderfully calm under this sort of pressure. Grace under pressure.
• "52 people killed. 700 injured. I hope some of those killed were the perpetrators.
• "London stock exchange down, and then straight back up again. Business as usual.
• "Given the planning that this attack displays, the good news is the relatively low loss of life. Despite the easy, soft targets they chose to rip apart with their explosives, it seems the cowardly, destructive fuckers were unable to acquire the materiel to kill and destroy at the level of Madrid, New York or Bali, or the coordination to kill on an even greater scale. Is that some sort of blessing? Are these people weaker in their destructive powere than we give them credit for?
• At times like these, isn't it a reminder that (despite their mixed premises and many political differences between us—and with significant low-life exceptions such as George Galloway and Keith Locke) western people and politicians actually share more than we differ. Tony Blair's words at midday London time could hardly be bettered: "It is important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations around the world.”
• The solidarity shown by western leaders at Gleneagles was something to see. Thirteen leaders including Jacques Chirac, George Bush, Kofi Annan and [even] Vladimir Putin stood shoulder-to-shoulder on stage behind Tony Blair has he decried the outrage, and promised to defend our values. I hope they mean it.
• Once again we see the lesson that you can not kill terrorism, you can only choke off its means of supply by hunting down those who support them and give them succour. At times such as these it becomes even more important that those who value human life and the ideas that support life do make a stand for the values of liberty and freedom.
• Those people that commit these atrocities and those who support them have exactly nothing to offer us except bloodshed , tears and death. Nothing."

~ Me from my post 'Grace Under Pressure' 

"Many years ago I was working in The City [of London] and there were two events that made travel into work almost impossible.

"The first was a series of storms that brought down power lines, blocked train routes and so on. Not surprisingly, the place was empty the next day. Why bother to struggle through?

"The other event was an IRA bomb which caused massive damage and loss of life. Trains were disrupted, travel to work the next day was horribly difficult and yet there were more people at work than on a normal day. There was no co-ordination to this, no instructions went out, but it appeared that people were crawling off their sick beds in order to be there at work the next day, thrusting their mewling and pewling infants into the arms of anyone at all so that they could be there.

"Yes, we’ll take an excuse for a day off, throw a sickie. But you threaten us, try to kill us? Kill and injure some of us?

"'Fuck you, sunshine.

"'We’ll not be having that. '

"No grand demonstrations, few warlike chants, a desire for revenge, of course, but the reaction of the average man and woman in the street? Yes, you’ve tried it now bugger off. We’re not scared, no, you won’t change us. Even if we are scared, you can still bugger off."

~ Tim Worstall from his post 'From Back in the Day'

"The time has come to move toward freeing all the people in the Middle East, thereby making the whole world safer."

"Iran under the mullahs is a totalitarian dictatorship, like Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and communist North Korea. Dictatorships, by their nature, have no claim to sovereignty.

"Iran’s mullahs, ayatollahs, and other varieties of witch doctors are a cross between a horde of fanatics and a criminal gang. To speak of their enslavement of their own populace as if it had a particle of legitimacy means the rulers have the right to subjugate and terrorise those caught in its jaws. Such relativism does to morality what jihadists did to the World Trade Center on 9/11.

"As one Iranian escapee asked on social media: Why is it, do you think, that there are no Iranians in the West protesting Israel’s attack? The absence of protests by Iranian refugees tells you all you need to know about the nature of the Iranian regime. ...

"Dictatorships do not recognise any rights of their enslaved subjects. They cannot, therefore, claim some 'right to rule.' ...

"Once we cease to think in collective terms, the principle becomes clear: among fully free countries, it does not matter which one has jurisdiction over the area in which you live. Your life and happiness depend on your rights being protected, not violated, by whichever government has jurisdiction.

"Whether or not one lives under the jurisdiction of a rights-protecting government, not the colours of the flag one lives under, is the life-or-death issue. ...

"The time has come to move toward freeing all the people in the Middle East, thereby making the whole world safer. The time has come to end the Islamic Regime in Iran."

~ Harry Binswanger from his post 'Why not end the Iranian dictatorship?'

That said ...

"Iran [is] a country that is vaster, more populous, and significantly more complex than Iraq. ...

"Should Israel continue on its current trajectory, including the targeting of the Islamic Republic’s civilian and energy infrastructure, it will break the Iranian state. But the Israelis are neither capable of, nor inclined to, pick up the pieces afterward. Rather, they will 'internationalise' the problem.. ...

"Optimists may note that Iran isn’t Iraq — an ethno-sectarian hodge-podge cobbled together within artificially drawn borders. Unlike Iraq, Iran’s ethnic constituents have long related organically as Iranians.

"But while this is true, even this innate coherence couldn’t ease the deeper struggle: the difficulty of rebuilding order in a context of profound, culturally ingrained tension between state and society. ..."

~ Sohrab Ahmari from his post 'The regime change maniacs are back'

Still, Iranians deserve better. Much better. And so does everyone the mullahs and their proxies have terrorised since 1979.

PS: A few Iranian and related folk I follow on Twitter...

Masih Alinejad

𝗡𝗶𝗼𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗴 ♛ ✡︎

Kareem Rifai

mersedeh_eye

Elica Le Bon الیکا‌ ل بن

Ali Safavi

Alireza Jafarzadeh

Nasser Sharif

Hamid Azimi

Nasrin Saifi

NCRI-FAC

People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)

'Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning'

"The suggestion that colonial systems are based on white supremacy is a generalisation that infects much of the debate about colonialism and colonisation. It suggests that 'white supremacy' ... was what motivated colonialism and colonisation. It did not, although there were times when, during the colonial experience, it manifested itself. ...
    "In 2017, [Nigel] Biggar initiated a five-year project at Oxford University ... to scrutinise critiques against the historical facts of empire. Historians and academics widely criticised the project ... 
    "Biggar’s book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, examines the morality of colonialism. ... conced[ing] in the Introduction to the book that the subject matter and his approach were both contentious. ...

"Many commentators of colonialism approach the topic from a critical theory perspective, seeking out any evidence to then suggest that all colonial activity was inherently evil. Biggar does not. His is a more nuanced approach and is that of an ethicist.  ...
    'Biggar’s argument is that the development of Empire and what is called colonialism was an institution that developed over centuries and no one could say that it was wholly good or wholly bad. Biggar cites examples from other imperial activities. The empire of Islam demonstrated examples of racism regarding those from Northern climes (it was too cold to be intelligent) or the tropics (it was too hot to be intelligent). ...

"He commences with the proposition that empire is not an historical aberration or a departure from historical norms. It is part of the natural order of a world that, until recently, lacked stable frontiers formalised by an overarching scheme of international law. The armed migration of peoples in search of resources might serve to unlock the riches of the world and spread knowledge and technical competence, processes which potentially benefit all mankind.
    "Certainly colonialism severely disrupted existing patterns of indigenous life. It was often achieved or maintained through violence and injustice. In the final analysis, all states maintain themselves by force or the threat of it.
    "Governments, imperial or domestic, have always involved light and shade, achievement and failure, good and evil. Biggar’s point is that it falsifies history to collect together everything bad about an institution and serve it up as if it were the whole.

"There are three major points that Biggar makes by way of mitigation when it comes to the legacy of Empire.
    "To begin with many of the worst things that happened were not the result of an ideology or a preconceived and calculated policy. There were abuses. They were recognised and were addressed although not always with the greatest success.
    "Secondly, along with the disruption that was caused to communities there were also benefits. Practices such as slavery, cannibalism, sati and human sacrifice, which were by any standards barbarous, were eliminated. The ground was laid for an economic and social transformation that lifted much of the world out of extremes of poverty.
    "Thirdly and finally not only did colonialism bring disruption but it brought order. The British brought the Rule of Law, constitutional government, honest administration, economic development and modern educational and research facilities, all long before they would have been achieved without European intervention. ...

"There can be no doubt that the British Empire contained evils and injustices but so does the history of any long-standing state. But the Empire was not essentially racist, exploitative or wantonly violent as a general proposition. It could correct errors and sins and importantly it prepared colonised peoples for liberal self-government.
    "What colonialism did bring to the table in the final analysis were liberal, humanitarian principles and endeavours that should be admired and carried into the future. Imaginary guilt should not cripple the self confidence of the British, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders as pillars of the liberal international order."

~ A Halfling from his post 'Colonialism - A Moral Reckoning'

"The majority of British Muslims are neither downtrodden victims nor Britain-hating extremists."

"Debates about British Muslims tend to be based on crude caricatures. Identitarians on the left see Muslims as a victimised and disaffected bloc, marginalised by a supposedly bigoted society. Meanwhile, identitarians on the right tend to see them as disloyal and anti-British – a potential enemy within. My latest report, co-authored by Dr Jake Scott and published last week by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life, shatters these myths and misconceptions about British Muslims.
    "Our polling shows that the overwhelming majority of British Muslims feel positively towards Britain. We found that 86 per cent believe Britain is a good place to live and that there are opportunities here for people to make progress and excel in life. This is actually higher than the general population, where the proportion drops to 70 per cent.
    "This optimism towards Britain stands in stark contrast to the left’s view of Muslims as a helpless and downtrodden minority. It also debunks the myth among the right that Muslims are poorly integrated and uniquely hostile to the UK. But this finding shouldn’t actually be a surprise. Not least as many British Muslims are born outside the UK. Generally, they tend to come from underdeveloped countries with relatively high levels of social unrest, political instability and institutional corruption. This is why, for many Muslim migrants, Britain represents opportunity, not oppression. ...
    "[A]ll too often, ordinary Muslims are ignored, while the state panders to vocal, assertive and self-selected ‘community representatives’, who tend to prioritise tribal interests over the wider common good. This mode of multicultural policymaking is not welcomed by most fair and civic-minded Muslims.
    "When we let British Muslims speak for themselves, it turns out they actually have lots of positive things to say about life in the UK. We must not allow radical activists on the fringes to shape the national conversation on British Muslims and their place in society. It’s high time we left the caricatures behind."

~ Rakib Ehsan, from his post 'What the left and the right get wrong about Muslims'

How does an open society cope with the reality that some of its members do not believe in an open society?

Russ Roberts has posted a great Twitter/X thread on the aftermath of October 7, which he sees as "a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and political opinion. Societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press." Such societies, he suggests, "are now at a crossroads ..."

For context, Russ is -- and has been for some while --- the host of the thoughtful and wide-ranging podcast EconTalk (one of the few to which I listen), and a long-time advocate of free speech, reflected on the many folk invited on to his show, including intellectual opponents. He recently moved from the US to Israel to take up the role of President of Shalem College, Jerusalem.

It's worth reading some of the replies too ...

The aftermath of October 7 is a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and political opinion. Societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press. Such societies are now at a crossroads and must think about the direction they wish to head. Reasonable people can disagree about who is responsible and in what amounts for the quality of civilian life in Gaza before October 7. Reasonable people can disagree about whether pressure should be put on Israel to temper its military response to the pogrom of October 7.

Debates over these questions happen here in Israel and they happen in other open societies around the world.

But what do you do about Jew-hatred? What do you do when anti-Zionism is clearly not merely a disagreement with Israeli policy but comes in a flavor that is about Jews and not just Israelis? An open society believes in freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. But how does an open society like Australia’s deal with a crowd of hundreds if not thousands who chant not just “F**k the Jews” but “Gas the Jews” on the steps of the Sydney Opera House? The police discouraged Jews from coming to that rally. Is that the right response? Is there an alternative? How does an open society like England’s deal with 100,000 people marching in the streets chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” in the aftermath of the October 7th pogrom? Those two slogans are a demand for ethnic cleansing—an Israel without Jews. People at that rally waved flags of Jihad—religious war. The police struggled to respond and ultimately did nothing in the moment to the flag waver. Should they have?

A friend of mine told me last night that an identifiably Jewish man—he was dressed in traditional Hasidic clothing—was assaulted in Heathrow Airport. He didn’t die. I don’t know how badly he was hurt. Open societies typically call this a “hate crime.” Is that enough? The man who was hurt went to the police but there is little they offered to be able to do. One answer is to stop being identifiably Jewish, and many Jews, fearful of violence, have lowered their profile.

On the Global Day of Rage that Hamas proclaimed in the aftermath of the October 7 pogrom, Jewish children attending Jewish schools were told not to wear their school uniforms. Some schools cancelled classes on that Friday. Is that the right way for an open society to respond--fo Jews to avoid being publicly Jewish—an inversion of sorts of requiring Jews to wear a yellow star in Nazi Germany?

Last night, at George Washington University, someone projected giant signs on the sides of buildings saying “Glory to the Martyrs” and “From the river to the sea.” Should celebrating the murder of Jews be protected speech in an open society?
And then there are the people tearing down the posters about the kidnapped adults and children in Gaza. Such actions are at least a tacit endorsement of child abduction. Is that free speech? Hate speech? Or a legitimate political protest?
Political disagreement is at the heart of an open society. Celebrating the deaths of your political opponents seems like something different. I don’t think an open society can survive if some of its members use violence or the threat of violence to silence their opponents.
How does an open society cope with the reality that some of its members do not believe in an open society?  

I recently read Stefan Zweig’s memoir, 'The World of Yesterday.' It’s a masterpiece [agree - Ed.] describing Zweig’s intellectual and cultural world in Vienna and the rest of Europe before and after World War I. He struggles to explain the rise of Hitler but ex post, he understands that part of Hitler’s success was due to how his supporters used violence and intimidation to silence his opponents and to raise the cost of their meeting and gathering publicly. We’re getting a small taste of that now in America and elsewhere. Two nights ago in Skokie Illinois there was a pro-Israel rally and some Jews gathered for an impromptu evening prayer service. Nearby, maybe twenty yards away, a crowd of dozens, held back by barriers, screamed “Allahu Akbar” at them. Police were there, too, restraining them. But what if such disrupters come into the synagogues and elsewhere, with disruptive tactics and implicit threat of violence? Who will stop them? Will the Jews fight back or lower their profile? 

There are lots of videos online of people gleefully pulling down those posters of kidnapped children and adults. Sometimes people watching nearby ask them not to do it. They beg those tearing down the posters for an explanation. No one steps in their way, though. No one fights them or tries to keep the despoilers from hiding the victims. I get it. We’re all afraid of people who seem willing to do violence to us. But how can an open society tolerate this? What does an open society do when some of its members are happy to use violence or the threat of violence to curtail the freedom of other members of that society? Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute once told me that there should be free speech for everyone except those who hold ideologies that do not believe in free speech. I was offended. Free speech should have no exceptions based on political grounds, I argued. I’ve since changed my mind. Tom was right.  Someone who hates Jews or any other group and supports their murder or abuse and who uses violence or the threat of violence to silence those who disagree cannot be tolerated in an open society. But how to implement that intolerance of intolerance? 

We now have the unbearable audio of one of the murderers on October 7th calling his parents and proudly declaring that he killed 10 Jews. Not ten Israelis. Not ten Zionists. Not ten white colonialists. Not 10 settlers. Ten Jews. Here in Israel, we have no illusions about what we’re up against. We know there are people who don’t just want our land. They want to kill us along the way. And they seem to enjoy it.  

There’s a genuine debate here in Israel about whether a ground offensive in Gaza will be worth the lives of the soldiers and the Gazan civilians who will die. But no one is debating whether it’s a good idea to kidnap children or kill their parents in front of them before abducting them. We know what we’re up against. Old-fashioned Jew-hatred. And we’re not going to hope it goes away. We’re going to fight. 

The open societies in the West elsewhere are going to have to come to terms with the reality that some of its citizens want to live in a very different kind of kind of society and are willing to use violence and the threat of violence to intimidate and harm people they disagree with. There is no simple answer to coping with this reality. It is easy to say that you’re against it—all the right people have said all the right things. But soon the West and the open societies may have to do the right thing. Deciding what that is and how to implement that decision is the terrible dilemma facing the West right now.

Beer

 

Cartoon by JesusAndMo.Net

Kabul [UPDATED]

CIA officer helps evacuees up a ladder onto US helicopter in Saigon, 29 April 1975.

[Pic by Hubert Van Es, Wikipedia]

It's looking like Saigon in 1975 all over again, isn't it.

There was no good time to pull out of Afghanistan. We can probably all agree on that. But it is possible to question how the pull-out was done -- starting with the 'peace talks' with the Taliban (peace! with the Taliban!) that delivered to those butchers the US's timetable of withdrawal, and right up to the advice from the world's most expensive 'intelligence' agencies that the government, the army and the whole damn place would not collapse in a heap once that withdrawal happened.

Won't happen, they said back in July. Won't happen within 90 days, they said last Thursday. Turns out it took less than 90 hours -- "which is close enough for US intelligence work," as Mark Steyn quipped.

Make no mistake, for anyone concerned with peace -- or with the idea that a Pax Americana could be its source -- this is another dark day indeed in the continuing collapse of that myth. As the great Bernard Lewis warned nearly two decades ago, 

the danger here is that America risks being seen as harmless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend... It's a very dangerous lesson to teach the planet.

That's no longer a risk. That's the lesson the whole world has just watched and learned. Again. To quote a line of Steyn's from about a decade ago, 

Afghanistan is about Afghanistan – if you're Afghan or Pakistani. But, if you're Russian or Chinese or Iranian or European, Afghanistan is about America.

So since we're posting old observations about America and Afghanistan, I thought I'd go back and briefly examine some of mine. Here's what I said on Afghanistan's day of liberation way back in 2001, when the coalition took Kabul:

The beards are coming off, and singing is heard again in Kabul. Although the war against terrorism is far from over, the Taliban retreat makes it possible to believe the war in Afghanistan just might be reaching a conclusion, and that civilisation and peace might come to Afghanistan some time soon. However, I have nagging doubts that will ever happen. First: while the occupying Northern Alliance is less single-mindedly oppressive than the Taleban, they are no less brutal. Second: the Taleban retreat to the hills puts them in their area of competitive advantage - these murderous witchdoctors don't know very much, but they do know all about killing and cave-dwelling.

Third, and most worryingly of all, the West has forgotten how to set up a successful civil government in an occupied area. In the long run this last concern is the most serious, and it might mean that the brutality becomes more visible, and Afghanistan more bloodstained....

If Bush can't set up successful civil government ... then he may have to call off the War Against Terrorism early, just as his father called off the Gulf War early for the self-same reason.

As you may recall, the Gulf War ended in 1991 with the US reluctant to finish the war as they should have - with the toppling of Saddam Hussein. When Bush senior stopped the turkey shoot on the road to Baghdad, it wasn't just a loss of courage - it was also the realisation that they had no end-game, that they wouldn't know what to do when they got there.

Our current statesmen may not know how to go about successfully rebuilding a conquered country, but we only need to travel back half a century to find some statesman who did know how.

Out of the rubble of Japan and Germany, Douglas McArthur, Ludwig Erhard, Wilhelm Röpke and Konrad Adenaur built new countries that abandoned their militaristic, totalitarian and feudal pasts and instead embraced peace, prosperity and freedom.

In the words of Röpke: "Men are gripped by a desire to be told what to do and to be ordered about, to the point almost of masochism. The state has become the subject of almost unparalleled idolatry." He and his colleagues recognised that attitude as the very source of war, and sought to banish it, new German Chancellor Adenaur declaring in March 1946: "The new state must no longer dominate the individual. Everyone must be allowed to take the initiative in every facet of existence." They set up governments large enough to maintain the rule of law and protect initiative, and small enough to get out of the way otherwise. And they worked like all hell!

Their minimal governments, constitutionally constrained to protect contracts and property rights, allowed free trade to flourish and prosperity to blossom. German and Japanese young men soon realised that there was more to life than butchery and invading their neighbours, and they set about getting rich instead.

They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Germany and Japan could hardly have started at a lower point. At the end of 1945, both countries were in ruins, yet only twenty years later they were flying. It was called a miracle, but it was in fact the work of some remarkable men.

We can only hope that the lessons from these remarkable men can be learned by the current crop of statesmen. It won't be easy, but if terrorism is to be eradicated and the gun-toting young men and the veiled women of Afghanistan offered any future at all - then the lessons must be learned, and they must be applied.

And if they are successful, then the world might have cause to give thanks once again to Douglas McArthur, Ludwig Erhard, Wilhelm Röpke and Konrad Adenaur.

In 1945, the knowledge existed to successfully rebuild countries after they'd been liberated from savagery. But by 1991's Gulf War, even the victors had realised that knowledge had gone. Disappeared. Gone with the wind. So they didn't drive to Baghdad, because they knew enough to know they wouldn't know what to do when they got there.

They still don't.

The result can be seen today in Kabul.

Taking questions from the press in July, Biden was asked if he saw “any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam.”

“None whatsoever. Zero,” he replied.

He was, in some way, right. The Afghan collapse was far more precipitous ...

UPDATE: "The Taliban have entered the Afghan capital, having rapidly swept to power throughout the country, while the U.S. is frantically airlifting its diplomats to safety. What explains the fall of Afghanistan? In 2001 U.S. forces targeted the Taliban’s Islamic totalitarian regime, which had harbored the 9/11 plotters. What went wrong? Join Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo for a special episode of the New Ideal podcast":