Maciej Kochanowicz

@AkyolinEnglish @thedispatch To be factually correct, the majority of Muslims are not Arabs (Semites).

After the terrorist attack on the San Diego mosque, Muslims and Jews, as fellow Semites, should recognize that they share a common concern: the same hate-filled enemy that wants to kill them all. As I wrote in @thedispatch magazine: thedispatch.com/newsletter/dis…

@Tendar I liked Tendar when he posted well-informed tweets about Ukraine. But he seems to lack knowledge about Iran and the Middle East (basic examples: Iran–Iraq War, Tanker War, Arab–Iranian relations, internal political dynamics in Iran), so half of his analysis is regrettably futile.

The unfolding disaster of the Trump administration in regards to Iran, is a self-inflicted wound on so many levels. It showed that military might alone is not a silver bullet. What went wrong? 1.) Atrocious planning and slow reaction It was known for 47 years that if Iran gets attacked that the Strait of Hormuz will be a target. When Iranian civilians were rising up in January 2026 and then were left alone, it was claimed that the military built up had to be concluded before an military engagement can happen. This cost valuable time. A military intervention so early and in conjunction with uprisings on the ground would have caught much more momentum. Worse, even after that delayed attack, the US strategy still didn't account for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. So it was a double-loss. 2.) No coherent strategy and missed military developments Once the operation started, again, Iran was reacting in a predictive way, launching thousands of drones and missiles which they had refined in the war in Ukraine. It was clear that the low-cost but numerous weapon systems will eventually cause a lot of damage. Ukraine has been experiencing this for 4 years and developed effective countermeasures. The Trump administration, however, repeatedly refused to heed the help and advice from Kyiv, and even belittled it. The US military, on the other hand, and even more the Arab countries in the Gulf quickly learned the hard way that this rebuff was stupid. Eventually, they invited Ukrainian drone experts. The USA lacked any kind of strategy when the Iranian regime refused to collapse and were absolutely ill-prepared for this kind of war. 3.) Lacking support by allies You might argue that Bush's Iraq war was ill-planned and when it comes to long term planning this was certainly the case, but it was far more successful in bringing in allies. More than 30 countries participated as the "coalition of the willing" back in 2003. Trump's Iran war, on the other hand, was widely an "one-man-show". Aside from Israel, the USA were practically alone. This resulted directly from Trump's repeated attacks against allies, including those who supported the USA in Afghanistan and even Iraq. It was clear that after that nobody wanted to risk his or her neck for somebody who repeatedly insulted them and their countries. The fact that Trump didn't bother to consult them beforehand only reaffirmed their stance. 4.) Decline of US soft power thanks to "DOGE" The destruction DOGE left in its wake is immeasurable. Gutting crucial elements of American soft power such as USAID, Voice of America and dozens of other programs destroyed a lot of goodwill the US had in the region and across the globe. The perception of the USA moved from a powerful benefactor to an aggressive and transactional bully. In its relentless obsession to fight "wokeness" - or what was perceived as such - the foundation of soft power, which was built in almost a century, was trampled on in a matter of months. From the carrot-and-stick approach only the stick remained, and that one turned to be flaccid. 5.) Overall downfall of the USA Let's not mince words here. Trump is a wrecking ball for US' democracy. Insider trading, corruption, mass lying, cozying up to dictators and an absolute disdain for the rule of law had a direct impact on America's standing in more than just political or morale questions. No matter how loud you scream in certain parts of the USA, it is fact that the USA under Trump have lost huge respect in the world. The enemies of the USA hate you just as must they hated you before, maybe even more, but your friends are absolutely shocked and aghast about what is happening. Far more devastating, however, is US' unreliability. What was agreed upon before, can change on a whim. "Good relations" are defined by one man and one man alone. This is not how you conduct policy, neither domestic nor foreign. The USA are in full decline and the big bang will certainly come if the trajectory is not immediately corrected. The strategic defeat in Iran is even worse than Vietnam, because Vietnam gave Washington the lesson from which they learned and eventually won the Cold War. What Trump is doing, however, is just doubling down on stupid and denying reality, which didn't work before and won't work even less now.

@theiaincameron @ChrisO_wiki alltheviews.world

@theiaincameron @ChrisO_wiki The theoretical limit is 530 km tombh.co.uk/longest-line-o…

The longest line of sight ever captured in the world was between the mountains Karagöl in Turkey and Shkhara on the Georgia-Russia border, 15th December 2024. At a distance of 493 km (306.4 miles), it’s the equivalent of seeing Ben Nevis from the hills of central Wales!

@dgriffinchess They even don't need chessboard

50 years ago today: World Champion Anatoly Karpov faces Friðrik Ólafsson in the final round of the small tournament in Amsterdam marking the 75th birthday of Max Euwe. Karpov won, to wrap up victory in the event. (📷: R. Bogaerts / ANEFO, via nationaalarchief.nl.) #chess

@athenaeumbc Was Dostoevsky really a Western writer? Wasn’t he critical of the West, opposed to the Westernizers (zapadniki), and much closer to Slavophilism? It feels somewhat strange to see him included among the great books of Western civilization.

Did you know that fewer than half of US adults read a book last year? In our academic system, it is normal to go from kindergarten to PhD without reading a single page of Homer, Plato, Augustine, Dante, or Milton. In any other age, such a person would not be considered educated at all. Since the state refuses to teach the Great Books of Western Civilization, we've started an independent group to the study them together. To preserve a culture, you must continually study the books and ideas that created it. Below are just some of the texts on our reading list! If this sounds like something you'd like to be part of, please join our group. We read a new classic text approx. every month and meet biweekly to discuss. We are studying the great works in dialogue with each other. Most of what we put out is free, but to support our efforts, please consider a paid subscription. It makes a huge difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. We are entirely independent, funded only by the incredible members of this community. Paid members get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Essays to guide you through the books we're reading - Access to the community chat room - The full archive of discussions and essays - Ability to vote on what we read next... Join us!

@m_saharia Dump the PhD. Get a job where you can work 9 AM to 4 PM., take a 1.5-hour lunch, plus 3 coffee breaks 😋

Yesterday, I was giving an intro talk to our dept's new PhD students. Technical things aside, my number 1 suggestion has remained the same over the years: Treat your PhD like a job. - Avoid 1.5h lunch and three tea breaks. - Avoid gossiping and loitering at work. - Lab at 9 am and leave at 6 pm. Being productive till 11 pm in the lab is a lie people till themselves when their day starts at 1 PM. Everything worth doing can be done with high intensity focus during work hours. And having fun in life is the secret to being productive in a marathon.

@shakerr_ahmed Where can I find more info? (Like more detailed program; is it online, if so what time zone etc.).

Coins tell stories. QMI’s new 4-hour workshop on Islamic Numismatics explores the history and meaning of coinage across the Islamic world 🪙 Now open for registration: ashaker@quranmss.com

@BBCkatyaadler Surprisingly pro-Russian text, repeating Trump's narrative about “negotiations” and “ceasefire”. What makes Ukraine stronger isn’t fake peace talks, but hard-fought gains: more Russian killed than mobilization can replace, territorial losses halted and the oil industry destroyed

How Ukraine has ended up strengthened in surprising ways by the Iran war. Might this catch Trump’s attention and focus?👇bbc.com/news/articles/…

@Loose_Alpha @GavinSBaker Calling someone an adversary forces them into competition with you. This was a foundational mistake of US policy toward China in the 2010s: defining it as an enemy rather than a partner.

@GavinSBaker The fundamental question here is time horizon, when our adversaries will hit critical thresholds in model capabilities, and what our export strategy does to that timeline + long term equilibrium

The argument for selling deprecated GPUs to China: Selling them less advanced GPUs than we have in America decreases the odds that they develop more advanced GPUs than America that go down a different, more power intensive tech tree. Pro national-security.

@WarMonitor3 Future

If you could live in any time period and place where and why?

@freemonotheist This is hypocrisy in its purest form: first use European freedom of religion to facilitate conversion to Islam, then invoke some debased understanding of sharia to ban people from leaving it.

That just assumes the conclusion. You’re treating conversion as a purely private act with no public or legal dimension, which is precisely what the classical tradition denies. The issue isn’t “freedom to choose” in the abstract, but the legal status of publicly entering and then repudiating a religious order grounded in divine law.

@electric_nick_ @BYD_Europe It is 2,1% av all cars, not just EV's?

BYD is scaling fast in Europe 🚀📊 @BYD_Europe 2024: 0.4% 2025: 1.4% Q1 2026: 2.1% Top market so far: 🇳🇴 Norway at 3.5%.

@simongerman600 @andyd10 Can you link source?

Big change! More US Americans now move to Europe than Europeans to the US. Only 20 years ago the ratio was 4:1. We can make educated guesses regarding the political leaning of the voters leaving the US. This chart might be embarrassing for MAGA but it works in their favour. HT @benbawan

@AkyolinEnglish Actually, Total Fertility Rates in many Muslim majority countries dropped the last decade even more than in non-Muslim countries.

These alarmist notes about Muslims in Europe only indicate a problem in Europe itself: decline of the family and dramatic drop in birth rates. Meanwhile, Muslims are doing the most natural thing: creating families and raising kids. It’s not their fault others stopped doing it.

@jakluge If US doesn't want to fulfill this role sooner or later China or India will.

The US is explicitly giving up on its ambition to be a responsible actor on the global stage, let alone a force for good.

@MaxShojaie @Joopiter15 @PahlaviReza This is sarcasm?

@MAKochanowicz @Joopiter15 @PahlaviReza Because it’s not invasion. It’s a military operation to unarmed the regime and give the people the opportunity to overthrow the regime. After that, the threat of the regime will be diminished automatically.

Whether or not Europe stands with us, whether or not your journalists do their jobs, whether or not your politicians demonstrate the courage to act, I will fight for my people and my country.

@Joopiter15 @PahlaviReza This part I don’t get: how can Pahlavi supporters both call the Islamic Republic an alien Arab implant and at the same time advocate a US–Arab invasion of Iran? 🤔

@PahlaviReza Shame on Europe #KingRezaPahlavi‌ForIran #جاويدشاه‌

@Rebel44CZ China/India/EU should make a deal with Iran/GCC and leave Trump empty-handed.

Maybe we should add a "stupidity" tariff on all US goods and services to help pay for the extra costs their stupid war with Iran has caused...

@haravayin_hogh That said, some of his books are very informative, like Empire on the fall of the Soviet Union, or his works on Latin America — in both cases, he knew the languages.

@haravayin_hogh I’ve been reading Kapuściński for 35 years, and to me he has always been first and foremost a great writer, with an unmatched command of the Polish language, not a source of factual information.

Here's my reading list on Iran by era. Limiting to 53 titles, excluding most adjacent-topic books, which cover Iran but aren't the focus, marked by *. Interests are more geared towards pre-Islamic Persia, including the ~500 years it was under foreign Macedonian/Parthian rule.🧵