Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Loose Tabs

I'm posting this on April 15, after initially hoping for April 10. The delay has in turn pushed Music Week out, not that I have much to report there anyway. It's been a difficult week or two, but aren't they all these days? I'll probably add more when I do publish Music Week, in a day or two. Hoping to get to some long-procrastinated house work this weekend, with decent weather forecast. Then, I hardly know what. Maybe I'll write about cooking or housework, or the book on manufacturing I've been reading, or the other books I got out from the library on tech business, or maybe another book on the advent of the Third Reich — not that the good deal I already know about that subject has adequately prepared me for the rise of Trump.

I should also point out that I've written several standalone pieces on the Iran war:

The last of these was written after Trump's April Fools' Day speech, but before his ultimatum threatening the "end of civilization" if Iran didn't surrender, or the "ceasefire" that allowed him to back down a bit (temporarily). My next piece will probably be on what I think a good peace agreement might look like, given a serious effort to find a solution based on "doing the right thing," and not just on which side is the more powerful and/or the most insane.

More on this below, in the still unfolding Iran War section.

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically (12 times from April-December 2025). My previous one appeared 24 days ago, on March 22.

I have a little-used option of selecting bits of text highlighted with a background color, for emphasis a bit more subtle than bold or ALL CAPS. (I saw this on Medium. I started with their greenish color [#bbdbba] and lightened it a bit [#dbfbda].) I'll try to use it sparingly.

Table of Contents:

New Stories

Sometimes stuff happens, and it dominates the news/opinion cycle for a few days or possibly several weeks. We might as well lead with it, because it's where attention is most concentrated. But eventually these stories will fold into the broader, more persistent themes of the following section.

Cuba: As I was filing my previous Loose Tabs on March 22, my feed was lighting up with tweets on Cuba, where Trump was tightening the blockade, and people of good will were raising the alarm about its probable human toll. Much like the heady early days of Bush's Iraq War, when you heard quips about how "real men go to Tehran," Trump was already talking up "Cuba next."

"No Kings": Another round of "No Kings" protests against Trump were scheduled for March 28, expected to draw biggest — and most diverse — anti-Trump crowds ever.

  • Michael Arria [03-26]: 'No Kings' protest refusal to address the war on Iran reflects the failure of the US antiwar movement: "The upcoming No Kings protest could be the biggest anti-Trump event ever, but opposing the war on Iran doesn't seem to be on the agenda." Sheesh! The organizers don't have to bullet point it (they may momentarily have balked, worrying about splitting their coalition, or maybe some kind of "rally around the flag" effect, but that didn't happen: people who were already anti-Trump saw through this war instantly, and others are discovering the war as a moment when he showed his true colors). Trump put the war on the agenda. The antiwar signs will come out. The war is already more unpopular than Vietnam was well into Nixon's "silent majority." As for the "antiwar movement," the job is going to be to get the Democratic politicians up to following their constituents and opposing the war in practice.

  • Bette Lee [04-03]: 30,000 "pissed off" Americans: A photo essay of the No Kings Protests in Portland.

Viktor Orbán: He founded the right-wing Fidesz party in Hungary, entered Parliament in 1994, and became prime minister from 1998-2002, and again in 2010, this time with enough of a majority he was able to change the constitution to lock in Fidesz power, and he has remained in power until losing this week's election. During his long reign in power, Orbán has become a hero for much of the American right (Tucker Carlson has broadcast from Hungary; Orbán has been opening speaker at CPAC; Steve Bannon referred to him as "Trump before Trump"; Trump and he have endorsed each other multiple times; JD Vance went to Hungary to campaign for Orbán [reminding us that Vance visited Pope Francis just before he died].) Although Orbán lost in a landslide this year, it remains to be seen whether the new government will be able to change the constitution to free the government from Fidesz control. [Later reports show winner Peter Magyar's Tisza party winning 137 of 199 seats in parliament, which would give them the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution.]

Fascism: This could be a regular feature section, but for everyday purposes we already have sections on Trump and Republicans (and Israel) that catch most of the news. Before the 2024 election, there was considerable debate over whether Trump is really a fascist (or is just play-acting). He settled that question very quickly upon taking office. Before the election, I felt that the similarities were pretty obvious, but that the political charge was largely pointless: those who understood the history of fascism were already opposed to Trump (aside from a tiny faction of proud fascists), while the word was nothing more than a vague expletive for almost everyone else (as was obvious from their efforts to call leftists "fascist"). But now that Trump is on the warpath, both domestically and abroad, there are few (if any) historical analogies other than fascism that come close to helping us understand what he is doing. I have no idea how many articles I will find explaining this, but let's start with a quote from Robert Paxton, author of Anatomy of Fascism, with this definition (from 2004):

Fascism may be defind as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, of victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

I read Paxton's book long ago, and have long felt that his definition was excessively tailored to separate Hitler and Mussolini from virtually every right-wing killer (e.g., Franco). I tend to agree with the 1930s "premature anti-fascists" who intuitively understood that the fascists are the people who wanted to kill us, regardless of how they rationalized their murderous intentions. But with his Iran War, Trump has managed to tick off literally every box on Paxton's inventory.

Eric Swalwell: Democratic congressman from California, ran for president in 2020, not coming remotely close but at least got a bit of name recognition, which this year he's tried to build on by running for governor. He was leading in the polls, but now has suspended his candidacy, and facing an expulsion vote in the House has announced his plans to resign. The charges have to do with sexual misconduct.

  • Benjy Sarlin [04-13]: Eric Swalwell's downfall, explained: "The accusations that forced out the frontrunner in California's governor race — and could push him from Congress next."

Major Threads

War on Iran: While the US has arguably waged war against Iran's Islamic Republic starting with the "Carter Doctrine" in 1979, and Israel has spurred America on at least since the 1990s, the belligerence accelerated after Trump became president in 2017 and terminated the Obama-negotiated JCPOA agreement, daring Iran to build a nuclear deterrent against US and Israeli attacks. This came to a head with the socalled Twelve-Day War of June 13-24, 2025, when Israel and the US bombed sites in Iran believed to be involved in developing materials that could be used to build nuclear warheads. Iran responded by launching missiles at Israel and US bases, hoping to establish a deterrence against further attacks, but measuring their response (as they had done following previous "targeted assassinations" to avoid provoking a broader war. Trump, at Netanyahu's urging, took this response as a sign of weakness, and started plotting another round of attacks, aimed at Iran's missiles, navy, air force, and political leadership. Trump used the period to build up offensive forces in the Persian Gulf, and on Feb. 28 unleashed a massive wave of airstrikes against Iran, starting with the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and much of the upper echelon of Iran's security state. Within a day, Trump declared himself the winner, and promised to wrap it up in a couple days or weeks. Iran, once again, responded by firing missiles and drones against Israel and US bases, but also by blocking passage through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off major exports of oil, gas, and petrochemicals (most critically fertilizer) from the region. While Iranian arms development has never deterred Israel and America — it has actually played large in the reasons given for US & Israeli aggression — control over the Strait has finally proven to be real leverage. Of course, sensible leaders would have understood that before testing the hypothesis, and decent leader wouldn't have thought of this war in the first place. Trump is neither. Netanyahu may be more complicated, but that hardly matters.

The following pieces are roughly chronological by date, but events have moved quickly. In particular, there is one section on Trump's April 1 "speech to the nation," where he suggested a willingness to not contest control over the Strait of Hormuz. Then on April 5 (Easter Sunday), Trump issued an ultimatum to open the Strait, otherwise he would order the destruction of Iran's civilian infrastructure:

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be livingin Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP

On April 7, Trump reiterated his ultimatum, in even more apocalyptic terms:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran.

Then, just before his April 7 deadline, Trump called the attack off and accepted a ceasefire based on Iran's 10-point proposal. I've seen conflicting information about what's in that plan (including some points I can't imagine Iran prevailing on, and others that will be extremely difficult for Trump to swallow — Netanyahu is a different case, because his interests are even more personal-political than Trump's, and even more divorced from Israel's actual needs — but the suggestion that the ceasefire should include Lebanon is clearly not being heeded by Israel. These points, and much more, are reiterated in the stories below.

  • Mitchell Plitnick:

    • [03-20]: Anger in the GCC spreads as Iran retaliates over US-Israeli strikes: "These are signs of the growing impatience of Iran's Arab neighbors with Iran's tactic of striking at them in response to Israeli or American attacks. But the anger of the Gulf states isn't only reserved for Iran." I expect this will become an increasingly large and decisive part of the story. Iran wants the US to leave the region, but can't insist on that as long as the GCC states look to Washington for defense. On the other hand, the US isn't a very reliable defense for them, and given Israel quite possibly puts them at greater risk than having no US bases and negotiating separate peace deals with Iran. If/when the GCC states split with Washington, the bases will have to go, and Iran will feel much more secure.

    • [03-26]: The US and Israel's diverging interests will prolong the war, but Iran will determine its outcome: "A month into the Iran war, it is clear that Israel aims to disrupt any possible off-ramp the Trump administration and Iran may be looking for to end the fighting, and that Iran, not the US, is the key actor that will determine how the war ends."

      • Julian E Barnes/Tyler Pager/Eric Schmitt [03-24]: Saudi leader is said to push Trump to continue Iran war in recent calls: "Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sees a 'historic opportunity' to remake the region, according to people briefed by US officials on the conversations." This doesn't seem to be very reliably sourced, so one suspects that it is meant to plant the idea that it isn't just Israel that is pushing the US to war. (This sort of thing has been a regular occurrence, as we've been regularly assured that the Saudis and other Persian Gulf states are every bit as alarmed by Iran as Israel is. That in turn has been the rationale for US arms sales to the region, which Israel would veto if they didn't buy the argument about Iran.) On the other hand, this makes MBS look like a blathering idiot. I've long felt that he is a deranged megalomaniac, but nowhere near this stupid. The most likely outcomes of the war are a failed state that sows chaos in the region and a retrenched, hardened central regime which will continue to threaten its neighbors (as it, not without reason, feels threatened by them). Given this scenario, what the Saudis and the Gulf states should be doing is attempting to mediate, not to escalate the conflict. If they don't find a peaceful way out, and are viewed as mere tools of Israel and America, they risk not just Iran taking pot shots at their infrastructure but revolt from within their own ranks.

      • Matzav [03-16]: Saudi Arabia denies report claiming Crown Prince urged US to continue war with Iran.

    • [04-03]: Trump has no good options to resolve the disaster he created in Iran: "Trump faces a disaster of his own making in Iran. He had no plan to address Iran's predictable retaliation, including closing the Strait of Hormuz, but even if he did, he faces another problem: Israel, his disastrous choice for a partner in crime."

    • [04-09]: The Iran war will end only when the US finally decides to rein in Israel: "As the shaky ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran holds, only Israel has an incentive to continue fighting, as Netanyahu is widely seen as having lost the war. If there is to be a durable end to this war, the U.S. will be forced to rein in Israel." I think he's right, but that this will be very difficult for Trump, who can't stand the idea that he has to back down on anything, especially with Netanyahu doing everything he can to keep the war going. The only real hope is that someone will get in Trump's ear and convince him that Netanyahu has steered him wrong. If he chooses to use it, I believe that he does have the power to rein in Netanyahu, or simply knock the legs out from under him. (Other Israeli politicians are already lining up to follow Trump into a peace agreement, but that's going to take a signal from Trump.)

  • Ali Abunimah [03-21]: The war on Iran is making it stronger. I'm skeptical, not just because I don't know how you measure such things, or whether "stronger" is even a good thing, but the war has allowed Iran to flex muscles that had long been kept dormant, and that's caught some people by surprise who expected them to cower under America's "shock and awe" attack and fold like a house of cards.

  • Harrison Mann [03-25]: 3 things Trump needs to do to end the Iran war: While admitting that "Trump couldn't end his war tomorrow, even if he wanted to," Mann's suggests are pretty basic:

    1. Unilateral de-escalation: "stop openly trying to destroy and take over Iran."
    2. Acknowledge Iran's demands: Put them on the agenda, and negotiate over them seriously.
    3. Rein in Netanyahu: If the US cannot control Israel, the US cannot be trusted to negotiate an end to the war (as Israel can, and probably will, open it up again).

    The problem is, it's going to be very hard for Trump to back out of this war without admitting that it was a mistake, especially if he can't blame the mistake on Netanyahu. Similarly, it's going to be hard for Netanyahu to back down without admitting his own colossal error. Moreover, even if he did so, he'd still have to deal with a Palestinian problem he's only made worse, and he doesn't have the political capital within Israel to get beyond that. Mann also wrote:

    • [03-10]: I was a US intelligence analyst. Here's what a ground invasion of Iran could look like: Actually, he only considers three scenarios, none of which have any chance of forcing an Iranian surrender, or even of triggering a regime change:

      1. Commando raid on nuclear sites to secure Iran's uranium: That may seem like a doable limited objective, but the sites are deep within Iran and are likely to be well defended, some known sites are deeply buried which will slow down the operation, and some materials have probably been moved to unknown sites.
      2. Seize Kharg Island to hold Iran's oil exports hostage: This isn't worth much unless you can ship the captured oil out of the Gulf, which right now you can't. You could blow it up to keep Iranian oil off the market longer, but so much of Trump's political flak concerns oil prices that he's letting Iran sell its oil at a premium now, rather than further reducing supply.
      3. Occupy Iran's coast to reopen oil shipping lanes: For this to work, you'd have to occupy all of a very rugged coastline, which Iranian troops can access by land. Moreover, Iran doesn't have to be on the coast to launch missiles and drones into the Strait, or to mine it.

      This doesn't discuss scenarios like Iraq and Afghanistan, where the US had proxy armies they could easily supply, and neighboring countries they could mount a land invasion from. No nation adjacent to Iran would allow the US to stage an invasion force. In any case, Iran is 3-4 times larger than Iraq or Afghanistan, making it much more formidable.

  • Joshua Keating

    • [03-26]: Trump says the Iran war is over. So why won't he end it? "It may not be possible to TACO out of this one."

    • [04-01]: Is this the beginning of the end of the war in Iran? "Trump signaled that he's ready to wrap up the conflict, but that may not be up to him." Well, it could be up to him, if he were willing to accept the consequences of his mistakes: he needs to cut Iran a deal which assures them that this war will never break out again; and he needs to restrain Israel. If he doesn't do the latter, he can't make a deal, because Israel can break anything he comes up with. And since he launched the attacks, the price of assurance has only gone up, to a level of concession he's bound to find uncomfortable (perhaps even humiliating).

    • [04-07]: "A whole civilization will die tonight": How Trump is threatening war crimes: "Bombing all of Iran's bridges and power plants would be illegal." Oh, by the way, bombing anything else is also illegal, and immoral, and even if you don't care about those things, just plain stupid politics.

    • [04-07]: From threatening a civilization to ceasefire: What we learned from a wild day in the Iran war: "Trump just pulled a Russian-style policy move — and it's not clear it will deliver what he promised." Russian-style? Keating thinks he's referring to the "escalate to de-escalate" tactic, which Russia has never actually used, and denies even considering. (Unlike, say, Nixon scrambling SAC bombers in a mock attack on the Soviet Union. Nixon called his tactic the Madman Theory. Trump's threat fits that model, even if he didn't plan on "ending civilization" with nukes (a detail he remained ambiguous on, but given the size of Iran and the limits of America's conventional weapons, the only credible threat would have been to use nukes).

    • [04-09]: We have no idea if Iran can still build a bomb: "The central goal of the war is nowhere near a resolution." Interview with Jeffrey Lewis ("a professor at the Middlebury Institute's James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies"). This doesn't go into a lot of detail, probably because, as the title says, no one knows. The questions of "why would they build a bomb?" and "why should we care?" aren't raised at all. They should be, because nuclear bombs are useless except as deterrence against attack. Given how stupid the US-Israeli attack has proven to be, we would have been better off if Iran had bombs (assuming that would have deterred us; it turns out that their command of the Strait of Hormuz should have been deterrence enough, although even that shouldn't have been necessary).

  • Tom Carson [03-26]: Strange Khargo: Donald Trump's Toy Story War: "This is obviously a cool way to behave that only Presidents get to cosplay in what John Le Carre called the theater of the real." And:

    It's said that feeling nostalgia for Trump's first term is a mug's game, and maybe so. But he did show a marked aversion to getting us entangled in mindless foreign wars. For all its sins, the MAGA base shares this antipathy, and that's why they're so puzzled — if not worse — about what's become of their Donald. But maybe he's just never found a war stupid enough to entrance him until now.

  • Jack Hunter

    • [03-27]: Putting boots on the ground could kill Trump's presidency: "Every single poll of Americans, including Republicans, shows a hard line against a land war involving US troops in Iran." Polling is fickle, and it's not unusual for support for a war to increase due to a "rally around the flag" effect as the question is transformed to "do you support our troops?" On the other hand, sustaining that level of support is difficult when you're losing and don't have anything to show for it. And Trump is uniquely polarizing, so much so that many Democrats who might have rallied behind Israel didn't give Trump a moment's credibility.

      1. Iran is too big, and too distant, and too estranged, for the US to mount a successful ground invasion, at least one aimed at occupying the whole country and installing a puppet regime.
      2. Trump will make no effort at nation buiding, so the purpose of a ground invasion will be simply to obliterate and kill more precisely than is possible from the air (cf. Israel in Gaza).
      3. The political (and for that matter economic) costs of a prolonged ground war will be unbearable for Trump personally and for America as a whole.

      Ergo, it's not going to happen. Still doesn't hurt to explain what a bad idea it is, especially given that the dead ender war mongers are sure to bring it up (if only to blame peaceniks for their own failures). I might also add that if Trump's presidency is already doomed, he's unstable enough that he might take that as reason for desperate measures.

    • [04-11]: Mark Levin seems upset we haven't nuked Iran: "The neoconservative talk host tried to normalize the use of nuclear weapons and now appears irate that the president hasn't taken his advice." The right-wing idiot chorus dropping hints for Trump.

  • Oliver Holmes, et al. [03-31]: 'Get your own oil': Trump launches tirade against Europe for not joining Iran war.

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos [04-01]: Trump's April Fools' address to the nation: "Expectations reached a fever pitch Wednesday, but he neither called for an end of the war nor announced a ground invasion. Bottom line: We're not finished." In anticipation of the speech, oil prices dropped and the stock market rose. The speech itself was so full of nothing that financial manipulation may have been its sole purpose. In 19 minutes, Trump laid out the case for going to war, or not going to war; declared victory, while vowing to fight on; gave up on opening the Strait of Hormuz, or expected it to happen magically. For more on the speech:

    Also by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos:

  • Timothy Snyder

    • [04-01]: Wars fought for fun cannot be won: "The attack on Iran is wrong in countless ways: morally, legally, politically. But set all of that aside momentarily and stay within the logic of war planning. The war cannot be won because it was the result of a whim, not a plan." Leaving aside whether any war can be won, and his six-point rationalization of the process (do "national interests" even exist, or are they just class interests?), the point about "whim" is well taken, as is his assertion that Trump just enjoys blowing things up (the "two-minute sizzle reels" he is shown daily proves that point). But the "capabilities" goes a bit deeper: the US is doing what it is capable of doing — mostly blowing things up, but also kidnapping Maduro, bribing allies, threatening everyone else, spreading lies — but is anyone asking whether what they can do actually helps to achieve any sensible goals? Not Trump, nor his cronies, nor the rational but narrow-minded specialists tasked with devising weapons and tactics for using them, nor the Clausewitz fanboys who decided that if politics was just war by other means, we could dispose of diplomacy and put all our eggs in the military's basket. But turning this into "fun" takes something else: a lack of concern for other people, and a shallowness of character that amounts to sociopathy.

      This is the pleasure principle. If war feels good, do it. Trump and Hegseth take satisfaction in killing or dominating other people.

      That, however, has nothing to do with a national interest.

      There is no evidence of anything beyond the pleasure principle. With good intentions and bad, commentators seek to force some policy around the whimsy. But it is whimsy all the way down. And a war for fun cannot be won.

      And now that we have started with the pleasure principle, Trump is trapped, at least for a while, like an amateur gambler, in the behaviorist logic of intermittent pleasure and pain. It felt good at first. But then it didn't feel good when Iran didn't surrender, when Iran destroyed US systems, when Iran blocked the Straits of Hormuz. So now we must "double down" (consider how often that gambling jargon appears!) so that Trump can get another hit of pleasure. Each one will be more elusive than the last.

      And he who follows the pleasure principle into war cannot understand the other side. He cannot understand any action that is based upon other grounds than his own. If the other side is not having "fun" (again, Trump's own term) it should surrender. If it does not, this is, according to Trump, "unfair."

    • [04-07]: The president speaks genocide. Deciphering Trump's "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again," while maligning various known "bad guys" who never themselves issued such sweeping and nihilistic threats, and not just because unlike Trump they never had to power to make such threats credible.

  • Zak Cheney-Rice [04-02]: How to ignore a war: "Trump is hoping confusing timelines and mixed messages of victory will make the conflict fade away."

  • David Dayen [04-02]: The opening of Trump's box: "Iran has put a tollgate across the Strait of Hormuz. This fundamentally changes the global economy."

  • Stephen Semler [04-02]: The war on Iran is more expensive than you think: "In the first two weeks of its war on Iran, the US spent an estimated $2.1 billion a day. It's no wonder Donald Trump is saying that the cost of war means the federal government can't afford to spend money to help Americans meet their basic needs." It's more expensive than Semler thinks, too.

  • Brahma Chellaney [04-03]: Why Iran is beating America: "The 'asymmetric cost' model — a war the US starts will ultimately cost the other side far more — has proven vital to sustain the illusion of American invincibility and to limit domestic political resistance to US military adventurism. Now, Iran has broken it." Explanation follows the paywall. I got a summary from google, and found the full article here, as How Iran is able to beat the US in its war. "Beat" has two meanings: to win, or just to hurt. The former is nonsensical in this context, as (despite common beliefs) both sides stand to lose much and/or gain little. The latter cuts both ways, but the question there isn't which side gets beat the worse, but how much each side can afford to be beaten. There is little doubt that the US can hurt Iran much worse than Iran can hurt the US, but can the US (and its "allies") take it? That may turn out to be the greater asymmetry.

  • Jonathan Swan/Maggie Haberman [04-07]: How Trump took the US to war with Iran: "In a series of Situation Room meetings, President Trump weighed his instincts against the deep concerns of his vice president and a pessimistic intelligence assessment. Here's the insure story of how he made the fateful decision." Pretty much as I expected, although the reporters' inside sources are already making sure to register their reservations, which Trump didn't hear or didn't give any credence to (e.g., on Hormuz, uprisings in Iran).

  • Andrew Prokop [04-08]: Does Trump really always chicken out? "Iran offers a fresh window into when Trump chickens out — and why his threats matter anyway." The problem with "chicken" is that it's a schoolyard taunt, meant to shame someone who backs away from a fight, or better still to provoke them into fighting. For a guy who fancies himself as tough, and who as president has almost arbitrary access to weapons of mass destruction, that's a dangerous accusation. The phrase caught on when Trump backed away from extreme tariff threats, which will foolish fell well short of acts of war. Iran, however, is an act of war, and there are many reasons to back away from that other than being chicken. The thing to understand is that Trump's wildest threats are nothing short of insane. When he realizes this, in some rare (for him) moment of sanity, we should welcome his backing off, and not taunt him for not doing something awful. Still, that's hard to do, largely because he so relishes making the insane threats in the first place, especially as doing so offers maximum publicity. But it also exposes him as thoughtless and dangerous, and utterly untrustworthy. It's rarely clear whether he does it just for effect, planning on "chickening out," or he just flies off the handle, and someone saner has to chill him down. Either way, it's not only not effective, like the "boy who cried wolf" it's likely to produce diminishing returns, and possibly end by doing him in. With Iran, I'm not sure that hasn't already happened.

  • James K Galbraith [04-08]: The ceasefire just showed the world that US military power is obsolete: "With the illusion shattered, now is the chance for the US to liberate itself from a broken imperial model." I see this more as a tactical retreat, perhaps based on the military finally acknowledging that they don't have the firepower to deliver on Trump's apocalyptic promises, nor do they have the defensive armor to protect against the inevitable reprisals. You could characterize that as weakness, or as pointlessness. But the ceasefire didn't shatter any illusions. It protected them from further distress. Still, why not hope for more?

    In my dreams, this defeat could liberate the US from a broken imperial model. The US could demilitarize, mothball its nuclear weapons, decommission its aircraft carriers, and close bases, even beyond those now abandoned in the Middle East. It could shrink its financial sector and devote its real resources to domestic physical, social and industrial renewal. It could revive, retrain and reenergize its worn-down population, with useful jobs doing worthwhile tasks. It could join the concert of great powers on equal terms, accepting the fact that none of the other powers — not China, not Russia, and not Iran — has any interest in taking over the world. And that therefore,for effective management of the world commonwealth, cooperative solutions must be found.

    Won't happen, but it is true that most Americans would be happier if we didn't have to carry the dead weight of empire. And that's really all it is.

  • Ishaan Tharoor [04-08]: A US-Iran ceasefire is here, but Trump's stone age mentality endures: "A temporary truce can't erase the chaos of a war that the White House started and never fully understood."

  • L Ali Khan [04-08]: The fragility of Gulf States: Some useful information here on the significance of migrant workers and foreign capital in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE. The population of migrant workers in Qatar and the UAE is around 88%; 67-70% in Kuwait; 52% in Bahrain. While migrant workers are kept powerless, those are huge numbers. While the economies are based on oil and gas, they've accumulated a lot of foreign investment, and run huge sovereign wealth funds. In Abu Dhabi, foreigners own 78% of total property value. This is all based on the appearance of stability, but could easily prove fragile.

  • Robert Pape [04-09]: "The war is turning Iran into a major world power": Interview with Pape, who's long been a skeptic of the use of air power only in war. He has a Substack called Escalation Trap, but mostly just briefing points there. As I understand "escalation trap," it's that when you commit escalation, you make it harder to try any other approach. Trump, for instance, had a range of negotiation options back in February, but in choosing to escalate by killing Khamenei, he discarded many of his options, committing to a path that pointed only toward more escalation. Pape explains it this way: "The Escalation Trap equips you with the frameworks to recognize when conflicts are shifting phases, anticipate the pressures driving escalation, and make clearer decisions before volatility hardens into irreversible commitments."

    Pape also wrote a NYT op-ed on this theme:

    • [04-06]: The war is turning Iran into a major world power. I don't much like this formulation, possibly because it seems like an unnecessary escalation: Iran clearly has some ability to frustrate and limit the US, but I'd beware of making a false equivalence. The ability to break something does not make one a craftsman, although it may negate the value of anyone else being a craftsman.

  • Ariana Aspuru/Sean Rameswaram [04-09]: Pete Hegseth preaches "maximum lethality." What has that meant in Iran? Interview with Benjamin Wallace-Wells. I'll note that all this talk about "warrior ethos" goes back to Robert D Kaplan, who in the 2000s wrote a couple books using that terminology. Actually, he concept goes back even further, as researchers discovered that draftees rarely fired their guns at enemy soldiers. A major push in the Vietnam War was to increase their firing efficiency, which was partly accomplished by dehumanizing their opponents. The next advance was getting rid of draftees, allowing better selection of "warriors," although the effect there was blunted by officers becoming less wasteful of their soldiers' lives. Still, it's hard to say that US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan weren't lethal enough. McChrystall's counterinsurgency program failed in Afghanistan because US soldiers were unwilling to build better relationships with Afghans if that meant restraint (and more risk). What's new with Trump and Hegseth is that you're never going to hear the phrase "hearts and minds" again. Given how hypocritical that's always been (at least since Vietnam), that may be for the better, but is a "pure warrior" military something that we want? Or can even use? Granted, sociopathic sadists like Hegseth and Trump get off on the idea, but are we going to look back on Trump's use of the military and find anything worth carrying forward? I doubt it.

  • James R Webb [04-09]: For peace with Iran to work a reckoning with Israel is in order: "Trump must get back to basics, and his promises to the American people. In order to do that he must put this relationship in its proper place." This is true, and more people should say so, but it is also a big ask for Trump, as his alignment with Israel is based not just on mutual donors and graft but on a deeply held faith in power and violence. Webb notes that "killing leadership makes it more difficult to negotiate." But Trump and Netanyahu have convinced themselves that negotiating is for losers, and in the process consider the elimination of potential negotiators as good policy. Good luck convincing them otherwise.

  • Matthew Cunningham-Cook [04-10]: Marcus Foundation bankrolls pro-Iran War group: "A foundation associated with Home Depot has been the biggest funder of one of the loudest voices for war against Iran." The group is Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which Bernie Marcus has donated $19 million to.

  • Cameron Peters [04-13]: The new Hormuz blockade, briefly explained: Not really. I wonder where this subhed came from: "Trump tries Iran's playbook." It's not really the same tactic at all, although as a short-term negotiation ploy it may make some sense.

Israel: Shortly after Israel and the US killed the Ayatollah, kicking off major war with Iran, Hezbollah lobbed a few rockets at northern Israel from Lebanon, so Israel responded as they always do, by escalating. Then when Trump canceled the apocalypse and agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, most people expected Lebanon to chill out, but Israel escalated once again, suggesting they were even madder about the ceasefire than about Hezbollah's initial attacks (or "self-defense" or whatever). Evidently, while Israel can drag Trump into their wars, Trump can't (or won't) attempt to control Israel, so whatever ceasefire promises he makes have no credibility.

  • Dave Reed

  • Jonathan Ofir [03-22]: 'Forever live by the sword': Understanding Israelis' massive support for Iran war: "A recent poll registered Israeli support for the war on Iran at a whopping 93%. Between the genocide, the ethnic cleansing, and the annexations, Israelis think this is how it's meant to be. Constant war to sustain our constant expansion." The prevalence of right-wingers in Israel seems to be the result of so many years of psychodrama — the existential fear that has been drummed into every Israeli, combined with the seeming reprieve of incredible military victories — although this is aided by the insulation of having nearly all of the violence take place outside their own communities. (For similar reasons, Americans fell in love with WWII, and generally tolerated later wars until their utter pointlessness became too obvious to ignore.) What troubles me more is how the nominal left has fallen for the same mythology. Here's an earlier piece that makes the same point:

    • Orly Noy [03-01]: We are at war, therefore we are: "Months after proclaiming a 'historic victory,' Israel embarks on another offensive against Iran — and the ritual erasure of political dissent begins anew."

      For these three men — Lapid, Golan, and Bennett — no task is supposedly more urgent than replacing Netanyahu's blood-soaked, Kahanist government, which has led the country to unprecedented depths. They understand how dangerous he is. They know the devastation another term would bring.

      Yet the moment the smell of war fills the air, all these insights evaporate, replaced by automatic reverence to the Israeli war machine. It is as if the very idea that a war can be opposed simply does not exist within their cognitive framework.

      No one understands this mechanism better than Netanyahu. However precarious his political position may be, he knows that uniting even his fiercest rivals across the Zionist spectrum is only a click away. If "in wartime there is no coalition or opposition," then perpetual war becomes his most reliable political strategy — and he has learned to deploy it with increasing frequency.

      Netanyahu is a cynical and dangerous war criminal. But one thing cannot be denied: No Israeli leader has so deeply understood the collective psyche of Jewish Israeli society. A society that seems capable of feeling its own pulse only in war and destruction; that, if it is not attacking, destroying, and killing, is not entirely certain that it exists. In that sense, Netanyahu fits it like a glove.

  • Esther Sperber [03-26]: Settler violence is the symptom, not the disease: "As rabbis and generals rush to denounce West Bank attacks, we must ask: what kind of political system makes such brutality not just possible, but predictable?"

  • Qassam Muaddi:

    • [03-25]: What it's like to be a family caught in the crosshairs of Israel's 'de-Palestinization' of Jerusalem: "The Hamdia family spent all of their life savings on building a home, but Israeli bulldozers destroyed it in a single day. They are one example of Israel's surging policy of home demolitions in the West Bank."

    • [03-31]: Israeli policies pose an existential threat to Palestinians in the West Bank. Why isn't there more resistance? "Israeli settler pogroms, annexation, and economic strangulation are eroding Palestinian life in the West Bank." The answer seems so obvious that it's almost irresponsible to even raise the question: resistance, either through legal channels or as a violent uprising, is hopeless, with the latter exactly what the Israelis are hoping for, an excuse to do to what's left of the Palestinian West Bank what they've done to Gaza. All that really leaves is making some kind of moral appeal to the world to chastise Israel, and good luck with that. For an example:

      • Salman Abu Sitta [04-01]: Israel may dominate through violence, but Palestinians hold a force more powerful: "Israel has overwhelming military power, but moral power rooted in peace and justice is completely absent from Zionism. This is the power that has inspired millions to shout 'Free Palestine' in cities around the world like never before." Easy to say for some kind of organizer based in London. I'm choking on "powerful" in the title. That's really not the right word — "compelling," maybe? or "inspiring"? — and what about "shouting"? Isn't that what you do when no one is listening?

      Still, I wouldn't discount resistance just because it isn't working to the satisfaction of activists (especially outsiders). People resist in their own ways, given their own situations, and the limits of hope and action. Slavery existed in America from 1619 to 1865, punctuated by a few inconsequential revolts, but I wouldn't say there were long periods of no resistance.

    • [03-31]: Global condemnation as Israeli ministers celebrate death penalty law targeting Palestinian prisoners: "Human rights groups condemned a new Israeli law targeting Palestinian prisoners with the death penalty as a possible war crime and 'deeply discriminatory.' Meanwhile, Israeli ministers celebrated the law's passage with champagne on the Knesset floor."

    • [04-04]: Israel is implementing its Gaza strategy in Lebanon: turning 'buffer zones' into permanent borders: "Israel has stated it does not plan to leave Lebanon even if the current 'war' ends. If the Gaza model is any guide, Israel appears to be moving toward expanding its border into Lebanon." Israel has long (as far back as Ben-Gurion) wanted to annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. The problem, as in Palestine, has always been disposing of the people who live there. But while there is renewed talk of annexation, their immediate plans are only slightly less ambitious:

      Now, as Israel escalates its war on Lebanon, Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has made Israel's plans clear: implement the Gaza model of total destruction and ethnic cleansing. He said on Tuesday that "the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun" will be implemented in Lebanon.

      This means that Netanyahu's orders to the Israeli army to create a buffer zone 10 kilometers deep into Lebanon is more than a military strategy. It is a statement of reshaping an area of approximately 10,000 square kilometers, making it uninhabitable for its Lebanese residents, and putting it under Israeli military control. In Syria, Israel hasn't conducted the same kind of destruction, but it has announced that it will remain in the new territories it occupied after the fall of the al-Assad regime in December 2024. Together, in Lebanon and Syria, Israel seeks to maintain permanent control of some 14,000 square kilometers, all to create a so-called "buffer zone."

    • [04-08]: As US and Iran agree to a temporary ceasefire, Israel launches 'massacre' in Lebanon, threatening entire deal: "Hours after Iran and the US reached a two-week ceasefire agreement, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign across Lebanon, killing hundreds of people and threatening to derail the US-Iranian ceasefire before it even begins."

  • Jamal Abdi [04-09]: The forever spoiler: Netanyahu has been blowing up diplomacy with Iran for decades.

  • Jonathan Ofir [04-10]: Israelis are finally revolting against Netanyahu — for agreeing to the US ceasefire with Iran: "The entire Israeli political spectrum is united in blasting Netanyahu for not continuing to attack Iran, and Israeli society agrees. The reason, to put it simply, is that Israelis are war junkies." That's easy to say, not just because "Israelis are war junkies," but because the war rhetoric is so seductive to people who are sheltered from the costs and risks.

Israel-American-World Relations: I used to try to separate out Israel-related pieces into several bins. The Iran war has its own section, with most of the Lebanon front included under Israel above, as well as operations in the West Bank and Gaza, and internal Israeli politics. But here we will break out stories relating to Israeli propaganda, and the growing opposition to Israeli apartheid, war, and genocide in America and around the world.

  • Peter Beinart

    • [02-16]: The closing of the establishment Jewish mind: "What a letter claiming that accusations of genocide against Israel constitute a 'blood libel' says about pro-Israel discourse." I don't recall whether I cited this before, but the tab was still open. You can skip over the housekeeping up top and go straight to the "video transcript, where he makes his point. I'll add that "blood libel" seems to have become some kind of shorthand for any baseless accusation against Jews. Even in that very generic interpretation, it's impossible to argue that the charge of genocide is baseless. There is considerable evidence on both critical fronts: intent, and effect. You may try to argue that either or both don't quite reach the level of the legal term, but you can't pretend there's no evidence to be weighed.

  • Theia Chatelle [03-10]: With world's eyes on Iran, Israel locks down the West Bank: "The Israeli military has closed checkpoints around the West Bank, restricting Palestinians' movement as settler violence ramps up."

  • Michael Arria

    • [03-12]: Lindsey Graham helped push Trump to war: "As the war on Iran unfolds, it's clear that most Americans, including many on the right, don't support it. Nevertheless, warmonger Republican Senator Lindsey Graham continues to boast about his role in helping Israel push the US into war." There's also a section here on "Samantha Power and genocide," which includes a transcript of her response to a question of why she didn't quit her USAID post so she could speak out about the genocide unfolding in Gaza. Her rationalization isn't very compelling, making me wonder if the real problem wasn't just that she didn't take the problem seriously enough, probably because the political currents within the Biden administration were hostile to any such circumspection.

    • [03-26]: Newsom flip-flops on Israeli apartheid comments: The lobby strikes back, and by backing down, Newsom further discredits himself. One might quibble about the term "apartheid," but that's mostly because Israel's system of discrimination and separation is more extreme than South Africa's. Democrats need to find a way to talk about Israel without falling into hasbara clichés which ultimately justify war and other abuses of human rights. You don't have to say "apartheid" or "genocide" (although anyone who does is well justified). You could just say that you believe that everyone should have full and equal civil and political rights wherever they live, under whatever government is operating there. Then, when asked to clarify whether that includes Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, all you have to say is "yes." When asked about "Israel's right to self-defense," you can say, "sure, but not at the expense of anyone's rights to equal civil and political rights." Back during the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris answered every question by first asserting Israel's "right to self-defense," after which nobody listened to anything else she had to say. Any time you write Israel a blank check like that, expect to be morally bankrupted.

    • [04-09]: Military aid to Israel emerges as the latest political litmus test for Democrats: "Last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she would vote against any military aid to Israel, even weapons deemed 'defensive.' As support for Israel craters across the US, the issue of military aid has become the latest litmus test for Democrats." This is still a long ways from becoming a majority view, let alone a litmus test. The more realistic test is whether to oppose Trump's war against Iran, and blame Netanyahu for putting the idea into his tiny brain, and then using the leverage of the purse to rein both of them in and negotiate some kind of peace. Still, that's going to be hard for Democrats to do, especially the pro-Israel ones who would rather attack Trump for failing to win an unimaginable victory than to admit that their loyalty to Israel was (and always has been) misguided. Mainstream Democrats must finally realize that the only way they can function — the only way they can build any degree of voter trust — in the modern world is to become the party of peace. Failing that, they have no alternative when Trump flies off the handle and plunges America into a hopeless war.

  • James North [03-26]: The US media is ignoring Israel's efforts to torpedo Trump's talks with Iran: "Why won't the mainstream US media report on Israel's efforts to sabotage Trump's efforts to end the war with Iran?"

  • Yonathan Touval [03-29]: Is it 1914 in America? Filed here because the author is an Israeli "foreign-policy analyst," complains about leaders who "remain strikingly obtuse about human beings — their pride, shame, convictions and historical memory"; about his dangerous it is to place war "in the hands of people untrained in irony, contingency and the darker constants of human nature." Corey Robin complained about this piece, and he's probably right, but it seems to me pretty orthogonal to whatever it is that drives the core question, which is whether to go to war or not. A simpler first approximation is "not."

  • Nathan Thompson [04-03]: Democratic leader shift away from Israel: "Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez's announcement that she will not vote for any Israeli military aid is part of an emerging trend." I'd be more impressed if Hakeem Jeffries said that.

  • Rawan Abhari [04-04]: Stop asking if Israel has a right to exist: "The question . . . isn't a real inquiry about the rights of nations. It's a manipulation of discourse, a litmus test that forces Palestinians to offer theoretical assurances before their real political grievances can even be heard."

  • James Zogby [04-14]: A major taboo was broken at the DNC last weekend: "An AIPAC-specific resolution didn't make it through the party's meeting. But I've never seen such an open debate about the role of pro-Israel money before."

Around the World: The Ukraine War is still with us, and beyond that states around the world try to navigate around the neuroses and pathologies of Trump and Netanyahu. It is worth noting that people who are routinely slandered as mad tyrants in America often appear as much saner than those two.

  • Anatol Lieven [03-31]: Is the Iran War breaking NATO forever? "Trump is lashing out at allies as European partners increasingly turn away from his war — all signs that this is more than just a situational divide."

  • Karthik Sankaran/Sarang Shidore [03-24]: Iran war could cripple the 'Yuxi Circle' or 55% of world population: "This includes the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, the Koreas, and all the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN."

  • Wenjing Wang [03-26]: On energy, China can sit this crisis out. Here's why. "'Green energy' here isn't a slogan or abstract aspiration. It's economic and geopolitical survival."

  • James Park [04-10]: Kim Jong Un waiting for Trump, but there's a path right in front of him: Relations between North and South Korea have thawed a bit since Lee Jae-myung followed Yoon Suk-yeol's "imprudent hawkishness," although Kim remains more focused on the US, even as Trump continues playing hard-to-get:

    From Pyongyang's perspective, engagement with Seoul has little strategic value. One takeaway Kim may have drawn from his failed 2018-19 negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump — mediated by South Korea — is that Seoul lacks either the diplomatic leverage to move U.S. policy or the agency to advance inter-Korean relations without U.S. consent. In practice, Washington exerts decisive influence over key issues of concern to Pyongyang, including potential nuclear talks, U.S.-South Korea joint military drills, sanctions, and a permanent end to the Korean War.

    Another lesson, this from the Iran War but already learned from Libya, is that giving up nuclear weapons would be stupid and perhaps suicidal. It occurs to me that Trump could make partial amends for his blunder in Iran by negotiating a normalization deal with North Korea. I doubt he has the skills or imagination to do so, and I doubt North Korea will give him the win on nuclear disarmament he mostly wants (not least to pair it with whatever he gets out of Iran; neither will be complete, but perhaps within spin distance). But it's doable if he can overcome the internal resistance that has kept the US at odds with North Korea since 1953.

Trump's World War III: I initially set this section up to deal with Trump's threats of war. We're obviously beyond that now, as Iran has its own section now. I've also opened a temporary news slot for Cuba. That leaves other fronts here, as well as broader issues of American militarism, including the logic that has led to the Iran War.

  • Leah Schroeder [02-04]: Hegseth to take control of Stars & Stripes for 'warfighter' makeover: "Critics, including veterans and First Amendment advocates, say the proposed overhaul would usurp the storied military newspaper's independence."

  • Joseph Bouchard [03-03]: How Maduro overthrow was key node in US-Israeli war on Iran: "It is important not to see them as separate operations: Venezuela was very much a precursor to regime change in Tehran." Several quotes here as how "the Israeli government has long viewed Venezuela as a strategic satellite of the Islamic Republic of Iran" make you wonder whether Israel had lobbied for the Venezuela coup. What is certain is that it served as a confidence-builder for Trump to go up against Iran — a point that Netanyahu and other skillfully exploited.

  • Daniel Immerwahr [03-16]: What' behind Trump's new world disorder? "A foreign policy freed of liberal pretenses and imperial ambitions could lead to restraint — or, as the Iran attack shows, simply license hit-and-run belligerence."

  • Alex Thurston [03-23]: Trump's Sahel reset banks on 'sovereignty,' guns + minerals deals. The art of dealing with Trump is the kickback.

  • Nick Turse: Selected articles (more here).

  • Robert Kagan [03-30]: America is now a rogue superpower: "Washington's conduct in the Iran war is accelerating global chaos and deepening America's dangerous isolation." Sounds like the author's dream come true. So why isn't he happy now?

  • Garrett Graff:

    • [04-02]: The mythology of Pete Hegseth: "The Iran War cheerleader-in-chief embraces a dangerous alternate history of the 21st century."

    • [04-06]: Is Trump about to nuke Iran? "The fact we can't say 'no' for sure should terrify us."

    • [2025-08-25]: America tips into fascism: "Today is different than before." Old, but still on the top of the author's "featured posts." Still, it wasn't immediately clear what had happened on that August 25, 2025, so I asked Google to look it up, and got this: "deadly Israeli airstrikes on Nasser Hospital in Gaza killing five journalists, the approach of powerful Typhoon Kajiki in Vietnam triggering evacuations, and US political developments involving National Guard deployments and administration cabinet changes." The latter was what the reference was to, but his subject was the whole anomalous drive of the then-eight-month-old Trump administration.

  • Francesca Fiorentini [04-03]: Finally, an anti-woke war: "America refuses a prolonged DEI quagmire." This is a bit too tongue-in-cheek, taking Hegseth at his word that the Bush wars failed because the military was too woke, but as he's fixing that, Trump should have any problems.

  • Simon Tisdall [04-04]: As Team Trump wage unceasing war on Iran, evangelical nationalists are destroying any moral world order we once had. Illustrated with pictures of Hegseth's Crusader tattoos, as if the text itself wasn't disturbing enough:

    Exploitation of Christian belief for political and military ends is a long-established, shabby US practice. . . . For most practising Christians, the misappropriation, distortion and weaponisation of faith to justify death and destruction, sow divisions, excuse war crimes and bomb Iran "back to the stone ages" is deeply saddening. Christians — who celebrate Easter on Sunday — believe Jesus was crucified for the sake of all mankind, for the forgiveness of sins, not for vindictive vengeance, pride and domination.

  • Charles Homans [04-04]: America is used to hiding its wars. Trump is doing the opposite. This seems to be largely based on the assumption that Americans have no risk in war any more: they can blow things up, kill people, make life difficult or impossible, and nothing can touch them, least of all conscience. Trump was quick to grasp this, perhaps because he has no conscience.

  • Abdaljawad Omar [04-06]: How the neoconservative influence over US war-making paved the way for Trump's war crimes in Iran: "Donald Trump's naked threats to target Iran's civilian infrastructure are the culmination of a strand of neoconservative thought that has defined U.S. war-making over three decades, from the Iraq war to Obama's drone campaigns to the Gaza genocide."

  • Bill Scher [04-08]: Trump believes in "madman theory." But he's actually a madman: "After six weeks of insane behavior, the ceasefire should not lead us to believe Trump has regained his facilities." The Madman Theory was one of Nixon's dumber ideas: in order to work, you not only have to convince the other side you're insane, but you are depending on their sanity to save you from yourself. But if the other side is sane, why don't you just try to reason with them. Sure, you have different interests, and you may have to compromise to get the best possible mix of gains and losses, but isn't that what sane people do? And I suspect that it's usually possible to reason your way to some kind of net positive — especially compared to the massive net-negative of war. The only reason for engaging in this sort of game is because you have goals that cannot be supported by reason, where one's only hope is to impose by power (e.g., Nixon on Vietnam).

    I don't know whether Trump is insane, or just plays at insanity on TV, but he's pretty convincing at it, at least in terms of his narcissism and sociopathy. What I do know is that he is reckless and insincere: he compulsively says crazy things he may or may not mean, but you can never trust to know the difference (he probably doesn't himself). I also believe that he only cares about himself, and can only engage the world in terms of what's in it for him. Thus people who want something from him have to go the circuitous route of flattery and apparent obeissance, which is to say they have to humiliate themselves to gain favors from someone they neither respect nor can trust. That's more opportunity than problem for weasels like Netanyahu and Lindsey Graham, but is a huge challenge for anyone who wants to reason toward sensible goals. When confronted with someone who is probably insane, the normal reaction is to look away and disengage. Unfortunately, if that person is also president, that's hard to do, and fraught with its own risks. (That's probably why the media work so hard to respect and rationalize Trump, because they don't feel like they can afford disengaging from the subject they're supposed to cover. Of course, the humiliation builds up, and sometimes even they snap.)

    It's also worth noting that the Madman Theory has never worked, even with leaders who are genuinely mad. At some point, pretty much everyone decides they've had enough, and have to fight back, even if the odds aren't good. Otherwise, you're just acquiescing to arrogance. By the way, Trump himself has embraced the Madman Theory:

  • Christian Paz:

    • [04-10]: Did the Trump administration threaten the pope? "Avignon-gate, the scandal blowing up MAGA-Catholic relations, explained." I'm tempted to quote James Baker about "not having a dog in that fight," but the piece is rather fascinating even if you understand that it's just about other people. I've found it interesting when right-winger protestants convert to Catholicism, presumably because they want a more ornate, more hierarchical religion (I've also heard of Catholics concerting to Eastern Orthodoxy for the same reason), only to find a mix of things they like (anti-abortion) and dislike (opposition to real killing, like capital punishment, and especially war).

    • [02-10]: Is MAGA pushing the Catholic Church to the left? "Progressive Catholics are ready to fight back." Interview with Christopher Hale, who publishes a newsletter called Letters from Leon, where he asserts that "the pontiff's effort to moderate the church and act as a bulwark against creeping authoritarianism in the Trump 2.0 era."

    • [04-13]: Donald Trump's pivot to blasphemy: "Attacking the pope and posing as Jesus — even religious conservatives are mad this time." I got over Christianity by the time I turned 20, but in my teens I was pretty well schooled in the intricacies of Christian sectarianism, at a time when the distinctions between the dozens of Protestant sects still meant something. In those days, a fraudulent poseur like Trump would have been called out from all quarters. These days, I'm not sure that most nominal Christians believe anything drawn from religious traditions. Rather, they believe in secular philosophies (liberalism, conservatism, fascism, some even socialism) and use selective readings of scripture and other authorities to buttress those beliefs. If I still cared, I would find this aspect of Trump very upsetting. Now, I'll just note that I doubt the sincerity of any professed Christian who isn't upset and disgusted by Trump's religious posturing.

  • Harold Meyerson [04-13]: Re-enacting the Crusades: "Pete Hegseth's Christianity — tribal, with plenty of enemies who deserve the sword — is central to the MAGA worldview."

  • Martin Di Caro [04-14]: Lacing up LBJ's shoes, Trump is walking willingly into a trap: "Choosing War author Fredrik Logevall on how the Democratic president went from bombing in 1964 to sending 500,000 ground troops into Vietnam in 1967." Interview. One thing I'm struck by here was the 1965 prediction by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that to win would take 500,000 troops and give years. That prediction was tested, and proved overly optimistic. Also by the Humphrey prediction that such a war would destroy the political unity Johnson built up in his 1964 landslide election.

  • Blaise Malley [04-14]: US strikes on alleged drug boats have killed more than 160 people: "With eyes on Middle East, military continues campaigns of deadly strikes at sea."

  • Jim Lobe [04-14]: Think the Iran war is a disaster? Blame these DC thin tanks first. "We asked AI to find the conflict's biggest boosters in Washington. Surprise: many are connected to Israel and pushed for the invasion of Iraq too." Don't let "AI" distract you here. Any systematic survey would have identified these same "usual suspects."

Trump vs. Law: This section has moved beyond the stormtroopers of ICE, and might as well include the whole US Courts system, as well as the increasingly oxymoronic Department of Justice. The firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi is one story here, but doesn't merit its own section.

Trump's Administration: Trump can't remake America in his own image (i.e., destroy the country, culture, and civilization) just by himself. He needs help, and having largely purged the government of civil servants and replaced them with his own minions, this is what they are doing (whether he's paying attention or not):

Trump Himself:

  • Margaret Hartmann:

  • Liz Crampton [03-28]: 'He's lied about everything': Iran war puts Trump on shaky ground with young MAGA men: "Their frustrations and anger with the conflict were on full display at CPAC this week."

  • Tom Carson:

    • [04-07]: Terminatic: After running on about Adlai Stevenson as only a novelist would, then offering a back-handed compliment to JFK:

      Sixty-plus years later, is the performance of Mar-A-Khargo's throne-sitter in chief in the same league? In every way but one, no way. It must gall Trump to his bone spurs that the Kennedys outdo him even as narcissists, and he can't stand Serious Pretending anyhow. Besides being profoundly unserious, he's actually lousy at pretending: just watch him whenever he's got to act solemnly concerned about anyone's welfare but his own, something Kennedy could pull off even right after someone shot him in the head. As anyone who's ever been in a bar fight can tell you, what Trump's good at isn't pretending but bullshitting, not the same thing at all. Too bad a ton of bullshit can kill people every bit as dead as a bazooka.

    • [04-14]: No King of Kings: "Trump does Jesus the way Debbie did Dallas."

      Trump still has no idea why his Ramadan message didn't go over well in the ungrateful Muslim world. He thought "God bless Allah" had a benign, even generous ring to it. Only the fake news persists in the slander that he doesn't have a gooey side he can trot out like bubble gum scraped off his heel.

      I mean, Jesus, am I wrong? It's not as if he represented himself as Allah, something he's been told is a sacrilege in their religion. He thinks that's a stupid rule, but guesses it takes all kinds to make a world. Not counting everyone he wants to obliterate, but that goes without saying. Or would if he ever stopped saying it.

      One difficulty of writing about Trump 2.0 is you can never be sure whether you're making crazy shit up or just guessing right a few hours ahead of the news cycle. Unless the real clickbait here is the scoop that everybody's just fucking fed up with him, I wouldn't have bet on the President of All the Peepholes sharing an utterly endearing AI image of himself dressed up an ever-succoring Messiah to raise this hue and cry. In happier days when the redcap horde was feeling more MAGAminous, it wouldn't have.

  • Zack Beauchamp [04-13]: New data suggests Trump's assault on democracy may be stalling out: "Three new reports give some surprising reasons for optimism."

Republicans:

  • Shawn McCreesh [03-31]: In South Dakota, neighbors feel sorry for Kristi Noem's husband.

  • Zack Beauchamp [04-13]: JD Vance had a vision for the world. Trump is wrecking it. "The vice president's disastrous week reveals that he's in a trap of his own making." First he went to Hungary to campaign for Orbán. (As I've been asking everyone this week: how is that supposed to work for anyone?) Then he went to Pakistan to head the negotiations with Iran, and walked out with nothing after 21 hours. "In effect, the most promising avatar of postliberal politics in America has been saddled with a record that betrays some of his movement's core principles. And it's not clear how he'll ever escape the baggage." Actually, it looks like it's very hard for a sitting vice president to get elected: aside from Adams and Jefferson, which was under a very different system (the VP was the runner-up, not just a ticket mate), the only ones I can think of was GHW Bush, following Reagan, who had won his second term in a landslide, and Martin Van Buren, after Jackson (again, very popular, and like Bush a loser running for a second term). On the other hand, Harris, Gore, Humphrey, and Nixon all lost (Nixon and Biden did win after an interval). Harris and Humphrey were really hurt by their inability to break with the wars of unpopular presidents. Of course, Vance's prospects would look up if Trump dies (resigns, is impeached, etc.). After a shaky start (John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur) promoted VPs have won their own terms (Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson).

  • Raquel Coronell Uribe [04-14]: Vance warns the pope should 'be careful' when talking about theology: "Vance, who [says he] is Catholic, said the pope was wrong in saying Jesus wasn't on the side of those who wield the sword, pointing to the US helping defeat the Nazis in World War II."

Democrats:

  • David W Chen [03-31]: A Democratic electrician nabs a state senate seat in Republican Florida: "With Brian Nathan's victory certified, Democrats won two of three state legislative races in this month's special elections, all in Republican-leaning districts." Democrats have flipped 30 seats since the 2024 election.

  • Astead Herndon [04-04]: How one Democratic senator is tackling Trump's corruption: "Sen. Chris Murphy explains how blatant corruption is undermining faith in democracy."

  • Ed Kilgore [04-15]: Finally, Democrats are a unitd antiwar party: "Conflicts with Vietnam and Iraq deeply divided the party. But now nearly all Democrats oppose Trump's dangerous and unjust Iran war." Aside from Fetterman, who voted against limiting Trump's assumed warmaking powers, I still think many others in the Democratic caucus come up short of being antiwar. If they were, they would vote against funding for Israel, which is the driving force (and supposed beneficiary, but that may just be Netanyahu) behind Trump's war. Still, it's a movement that has to happen if Democrats are ever able to regain and maintain a hold on the presidency.

The Economy (and Economists):

  • John Cassidy:

  • Jonquilyn Hill [04-05]: The high price of everything, explained: "What the cost of gas, coffee, and milk tells us about why everything feels more expensive right now." Actually, the author just explains three cases, with three different explanations: gas prices are directly attributable to Trump's war on Iran, which has disrupted supplies; coffee production has also been disrupted, but by climate change; milk is less obvious, but a combined effect of rising costs elsewhere (including oil, which affects all of agriculture). But the author doesn't get to "everything," or even try. That's partly because the answers aren't simple — other than inflating the money supply, which may have seeded the wave of price rises that started around 2021 but doesn't explain much of what's happening recently. My own theory is that most of the initial price rises were caused by supply disruptions, then escalated by companies that found they had enough market power to raise prices, after which "inflation" snowballed into a psychology, where most businesses wanted to get in on the action, or at least not be left out. Trump is making this worse with his wars and tariffs (a consumption tax disguised as ordinary price gouging), and possibly by his deficit spending (limited as the tax cuts mostly went to the rich). On the other hand, he's dragging the economy down, not unlike the Volcker recession that broke the inflationary mindset of the 1970s.

  • Ryan Cooper [04-07]: A retrospective on Bidenomics: "Joe Biden listened to the left on full employment. But the lasting effects were wanting, and the politics were brutal." I don't have time to unpack this pretty good summary of how Biden's policies affected the economy, mostly for the better, not that he got much credit for that, not just from his enemies but from his own incoherence. I should also stress once again that what killed Harris wasn't the economy but the wars. (True that Harris wasn't much more articulate about the economy than Biden was, and especially that she failed to identify the villains — largely because she spent more time sucking up to donors than campaigning for votes.)

  • Eric Levitz

  • Robert Kuttner [04-14]: The faltering war economy: "Trump's war craters the economy in multiple ways, even if it somehow ends soon."

Technology (Including AI):

  • Eric Levitz [03-26]: 4 reasons why AI (probably) won't take your job: "What the AI jobs panic is missing."

  • Ergosphere [03-30]: The machines are fine. I'm worried about us. An astrophysics story, or parable perhaps.

  • Janet Abou-Elias/William D Hartung [04-07]: The Pentagon is going "AI first": "The US military is placing the technology at the center of its mission,and the human costs promise to be staggering." "Human costs" are nothing new at the Pentagon, where the best remedy would be slowing down and down-sizing, both of which could support much-needed overview. AI's promise of a faster, sloppier control system does just the opposite. But we should also be concerned about the literal costs. One deal cited here is a 10-year, $5.6 billion contract to the start up Salesforce. Only the Pentagon could blow that kind of money on a nebulous fantasy sketch.

  • David Futrelle [04-13]: How a New York Times puff piece missed the toxic creed of the tech oligarchy: "A profile of an AI healthcare start-up overlooked the creaky business model behind it, as well as the tech sector's worship of 'high agency.'" About Michael Gallagher, of Medvi.

    According to Gallagher, the company is on track to do $1.8 billion in sales this year, with a staff of only two (Gallagher and his younger brother).

    Too good to be true? Well, yes. Almost immediately, critics online filled in what the Times had left out: a warning letter the FDA sent to Medvi over alleged deceptive marketing practices; a RICO lawsuit against Medvi's fulfillment partner over a weight-loss compound that hasn't been proven to work; a slew of AI-generated fake doctors shilling for Medvi in thousands of spammy ads.

    After the online outcry over the article, the Times added a few paragraphs describing some of the ways that "Medvi's aggressive advertising has led to legal and regulatory issues" — which is putting it a little gingerly. But the story remains largely unchanged on the Times website. I say let it stand. Because every age gets the heroes it deserves, and Gallagher is in many ways a perfect representative of our current Gilded Age 2.0.

Regular Columnists

Sometimes an interesting columnist writes often enough that it makes sense to collect their work in one place, rather than scatter it about.

Paul Krugman:

  • [04-07]: MAGA is winning its war against US science: "When a political movement believes that ignorance is strength."

  • [04-13]: The Axis of Autocracy loses a wheel: "Hungarians stand up for democracy."

  • [04-14]: Chinese electrotech is the big winner in the Iran War: "An energy-hungry world is being pushed away by America and into China's arms."

  • [04-15]: Autocracy = corruption: "What the US resistance can learn from Hungary." It's worth recalling here that Trump's presidential wins came when he was (improbably but relentlessly) able to paint his opponent as the corrupt one. He never acknowledged, much less normalize, his own corruption.

    The good news from Hungary is that blatant corruption doesn't have to be normalized. In fact, public perceptions of runaway corruption can become a weapon in defense of democracy. The public understands corruption, hates it, and can be mobilized to vote en masse against it.

Nathan J Robinson and Current Affairs:

Jeffrey St Clair:

Robert Wright:

  • [04-11]: The future arrived this week. "And boy are we not ready for it!" Author has a new book coming out in June, with the very unfortunate title of The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. I recently read his 1999 book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, which was pretty good but would have been better had he excised all his references to "God" and "destiny." I suspect the new book will also have much real value, but once again way too much about "God" and "Cosmic Reckoning." He does write here:

    One of the book's central points is that if we're going to successfully navigate the AI revolution — avoid traumas and catastrophes that range from social chaos to planet-wide authoritarian rule to nuclear war to complete annihilation — we'll have to cross the threshold to true global community. The world's nations have to confront this challenge collectively — build new international rules and norms — or else watch in dismay and intermittent terror as a technology that accelerates without constraint or guidance strips us of agency.

    Given that "true global community" is a pretty extreme pipe dream, I wonder if something more practicable might work. To some extent, this depends on what the real threat of AI is, and how it interacts with other problems (or perhaps I should say comorbidities?). If you want to take nuclear war off the table, maybe the best way to tackle that problem isn't through AI but through nuclear weapons. I'm all for some "new international rules and norms," but caution that they have to be mutually agreed upon, without the coercion of power. It isn't beyond imagination that the ten or so states that possess nuclear weapons could agree to safeguards that would effectively end their threat, and that every other nation could agree, as nearly all have already done in signing the NPT, not to build their own. With no nuclear weapons, there can be no nuclear war, regardless of how funky AI gets.

    "Social chaos" and "authoritarian rule," tough less clearly defined, can also be dealt with without reference to AI. As for AI itself, I think most people understand that it promises some benefits but also poses some challenges, possibly including a few that may prove insurmountable. If we take nation-states as atoms, each free and autonomous — i.e., living in anarchy, with no overarching "world order," just a set of "international rules and norms" that are freely agreed upon, I doubt that any will want to not enjoy the benefits of AI, although they may have legitimate concerns about how others might abuse it, so they may seek to formulate some rules and norms to regulate its use, maybe even its development. Wright isn't arguing against me here, but he's imagining some kind of enforcement mechanism that I reject at an invitation to abuse. All I want to do here is question why we need to go to such (unworkable) extremes?

    Which gets us back to "what God has to do with it"? On the one hand, I find the concept bewildering (what could it possibly mean?), and on the other I find it ominous (who wants to be God? and why?). I don't know much about AI, but I suspect that the notion that whoever controls AI is going to be able to run the world is just megalomaniacal nonsense. Admittedly, if you look at the capitalization of AI companies, it's profitable nonsense, as it seems to be the basis of such ridiculous valuations. But aside from trying to set up a system of tribute-rents, which is ultimately equivalent to a tax on breathing (or life), where is the natural profit? Conversely, take away the patents and rents, and where is the problem?

    The piece goes on to offer valuable insights about Trump and Iran, before cycling back to his book, wherein he writes:

    These kinds of dangers — AI-abetted biological virus, AI-abetted computer virus, AI-infused cyberweapon, rampantly destructive AI agent — and various others make it harder for any nation to feel safe unless it has some confidence that things are under control in other nations. And it's hard to get that kind of confidence without international agreements that qualify, in at least some sense, for the term "international governance."

    To which he quotes Tom Friedman, saying virtually the same thing, but couched in more conventional realpolitik:

    The solution — this may shock people — must begin with the two AI superpowers, the US and China. It is now urgent that they learn to collaborate to prevent bad actors from gaining access to this next level of cyber capability. Such a powerful tool would threaten them both, leaving them exposed to criminal actors inside their countries and terrorist groups and other adversaries outside. It could easily become a greater threat to each country than the two countries are to each other.

    I suppose I find it hopeful that such great powers might fear the future more than each other and/or their own people, but I'm sure a sampling of AI executives would love nothing more than to see an arms race develop to control AI, as that would make themselves the most important (and potentially most powerful) people in the world. As it is, they're playing up the potential use of AI in weapons systems, because they know that's where the sweet spot between fear and money is. Take that money away, and the mighty motivation of greed will melt away. That won't cause AI not to be developed, but will slow it down, and straighten it out, with the much better motivation of altruism.

Miscellaneous Pieces

The following articles are more/less in order published, although some authors have collected pieces, and some entries have related articles underneath.

Gabrielle Gurley [03-30]: Ending sports owner blackmail: "A new bill would prohibit the money grabs that billionaire team owners unleash to pit states and cities against each other in bidding wars over potential moves." The bill is the Home Team Act, sponsored by Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). They cite the Green Bay Packers as an exception to the billionaire-owner rule, as the team is owned by fans, none of whom can exceed a 4% ownership share.

Caitlin Dewey [04-01]: America is going back to the moon: "Artemis II and the new space race, explained."

John Semley [04-14]: The fanfare around the band Geese actually was a psyop: "The Brooklyn band Geese was labeled an 'industry plant' by those who questioned its sudden ubiquity. Maybe it was." Paywalled ("You've read your last free article"; when did I ever read my first?), so I'm short on details, but as a non-fan this caught my eye. Zachary Carter tweeted: "Give me a break. They had a digital marketing team for their fourth record, and it worked. Music has always been promoted via inorganic methods." The Geese album, Getting Killed, wound up in first place in my 2025 EOY Aggregate, by a slim margin over Rosalía's Lux (247-230; AOTY put Lux ahead, 413-404, an order I might have wound up with had I surveyed my usual large number of lists, but I fell far short). I'm not a fan of either album, but had five A- albums in AOTY's top ten: Wednesday, CMAT, Lily Allen, Clipse, and Billy Woods. That's if anything above average for me, so I'm used to albums I don't much care for ranking well. Publicity has something to do with this, but more to do with ranked vs. unranked. Records that are noticed by enough people to get reviewed usually scatter not by degrees of PR but by more basic taste considerations. That said, I have even less idea why other people like Geese than I do with other ranked albums I don't care for (FKA Twigs and Turnstile from both our lists; I had Bad Bunny at ***, which qualifies as an album I like; Oklou and Hayley Williams, both ** for me, made the AOTY list, displacing Allen and Woods — sure, my list is skewed slightly in my direction).

Books:

  • Tom Carson [03-28]: Charlie is my darling: "The Little Drummer Girl, 43 years later."

  • Robert Kuttner [04-03]: Capital ideas: "Two books on the history of capitalism provide lessons for how to tame it." Reviews of Sven Beckert: Capitalism: A Global History, and John Cassidy: Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI.

  • Ishan Desai-Geller [04-10]: The enduring lessons of the Jewish bund: "A conversation with Molly Crabapple about Here Where We Live Is Our Country, her capacious history of Bundism and what we can learn from their socialist and anti-Zionist example."

Some Notable Deaths: I've been using the New York Times, but it's giving me aggravation these days, so I'll switch over to Wikipedia (April, also March), which is probably better anyway. Roughly speaking, since my last report on March 22:

  • Dan Wall, 72 [04-14]: jazz organ player, notably worked with John Abercrombie and Jerry Bergonzi.

  • Asha Bhosle, 92 [04-12]: Indian singer.

  • Phil Garner, 76 [04-11], baseball player and manager.

  • Mike Westbrook, 90 [04-11]: English pianist, composer, band leader; a Penguin Guide favorite.

  • Afrika Bambaataa, 68 [04-09]: DJ and rapper, "Looking for the Perfect Beat" was one of the founding classics of hip-hop.

  • Davey Lopes, 80 [04-08], baseball player and manager.

  • Tracy Kidder, 80 [03-24], journalist. I read his books: The Soul of a New Machine (1982, which won a Pulitzer), and House (1985).

  • Chip Taylor, 86 [03-23], singer-songwriter ("Wild Thing").

  • Keith Ingham, 88 [03-12], English pianist.

Tweets: I've usually used this section for highlighting clever responses and/or interesting ideas.

  • Kevin M Kruse [04-02]:

    I think the reason AI propagandists are so flustered by the fact that no real writer wants to use their idiotic tools is that they themselves don't enjoy writing. They see it as a boring arduous chore to be avoided, while real writers actually enjoy writing and actually care about the quality of it.

    It's like approaching a chef who really loves making new dishes, watching other people enjoy them, enjoying the taste himself and saying, look, this cooking thing takes a lot of time and energy, wouldn't you rather just get your nutritional needs from this brand new Gruel Bar we're selling?

  • Tom Carson [04-02]:

    It fascinates me how totally indequate the NYT is -- its methods, its strictures, its preconceptions, its reason for being -- the dealing with Trump's insanity. This brand of delirium is outside their wheelhouse and that's why they're pretending it doesn't exist. I say this with some sympathy, like your grandma losing the ability to proper her wheelchair in any direction at all.

    A comment: "Compared to all the other national and international reporting outfits that are doing such a bang-up job?" Carson responded citing "the mystique of invaluability and authoritativeness the NYT has projected all my life." At least he admits that the reputation may not be deserved.

  • Jon Lovett [04-03]: "In a surprise twist, the Epstein files released the attorney general."

  • Emily DiVito [04-15]:

    Annual Tax Day reminder that Trump killed Direct File and now taxpayers have no choice but to shell out millions a year to TurboTax.

  • Dean Baker [04-15]: "Trump means that when Netanyahu gave him the orders, he was prepared to ignore the consequences." After quoting Aaron Rupar:

    Trump on high oil prices: "They're not up -- I thought, I mean, honestly -- I thought they're be much -- and I was willing to do that, to stop a nuclear weapon to be used against this country or the Middle East, to stop that it was certainly worthwhile being much higher than it is.

    Uh, but there was no nuclear weapon, nor even a program to develop a nuclear weapon, a lie Netanyahu has been pushing since the 1990s, when his estimates of achievement had already been discredited. Even if Iran had nuclear weapons, there is no reason to think that Iran would use it against Israel, much less against the US. Since the end of WWII, no nation with nuclear weapons has used them against another nation. Nor have any used them for "nuclear blackmail" (unless you read Trump's ultimatum to Iran that way). They've all posed them as deterrence against foreign attack, only to be used in response to such an attack. So why should Trump, or Netanyahu, worry about Iran developing nukes, other than that they hoped to attack Iran before it had any sort of nuclear deterrent? For what it's worth, I don't think that Netanyahu is in a position to give Trump orders. But he's a conniving sort, and persuaded Trump to launch the war by exploiting Trump's ignorance and playing on his vanity. How long Trump will allow himself to be so manipulated is an open question, as is what he will do about it. While I don't see Trump as someone easily ordered about, he is one of those rich guys who depends on other people to do anything, and he's surrounded himself with a mix of sycophantic morons and Israel agents that won't give him many options.

Current count: 255 links, 17438 words (21436 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.