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@JohnSmithb8xk @ProjectLiberal Yes there is. Modern population geneticists call them “Yamnaya” now but Aryan theory is basically correct.

@MorganDowd77 @ProjectLiberal There is no 'Aryan' race you Nazi fuck.

You cannot be pro-Western values and pro-Russia.

@phl43 It’s open to Iran’s friends and closed to their enemies. Same as it’s been for weeks now.

I can’t even tell if people are pretending that the strait is open or if they’re pretending that it’s closed at this point.

@minordissent Art and culture are downstream from politics and power. There’s no boy bands in North Korea.

Culture is downstream from art. If you fix the degeneracy and nihilism of our artists, the degeneracy and nihilism of our culture will fix itself.

@calvinrobinson Protestantism is the inevitable result of the printing press. If you allow people to read the Bible, they are going to notice inconsistencies and form their own opinions.

Protestantism is Jewish.

@calvinrobinson Ideology isn’t a threat. People are threats.

Which toxic ideology is the greatest threat to the West?

@WilliamWolfe Does anyone listen to David French? He has no organic audience. Whose money is propping him up?

David French: “I’m not going to say James Talarico is not a Christian.” Translation: David French doesn’t understand what Christianity is. Because if he did, he would know Talarico isn’t one.

@dalepartridge People believe what they are told to believe. Take control of the propaganda apparatus -- the media and the schools -- and you can effect great change in public opinion. That is how we got here.

We want the world they had, but we don’t want to believe what they believed.

@Cernovich We need to win the midterms so we can bring in more Haitians, stat!

The pro-war people can claim they were right and the panicans were wrong again. The anti-war can claim their pushback helped bring the war to the end. Great. Everyone was right. Now let’s try to not lose the midterms.

@TheBlackHorse65 This is what Iran has confirmed. Their stance has not changed. Trump is full of shit.

Iran has also confirmed; It really does look like this round of the war is over. Fascinating moment in geopolitics.

The goyim are awake. I repeat, the goyim are AWAKE!!

@brandan_buck The Trump Doctrine (in actual actuality). 1. Do what Netanyahu says 2. Try to save face That's it.

The Trump Doctrine (in actuality). 1. Launch of a war of choice 2. Offer no strategic goals 3. Dazzle people with explosions 4. Fight to return to the status quo ante 5. (Maybe) Get what was already on the table 6. Declare victory.

@policytensor What is possibly wrong is the unstated assumption that the US under Trump acts rationally in its self-interest. The Iranians disagree with this assumption. They assume that Israel is in control and willing to sacrifice American interests.

I made many predictions, in writing and complete with the evidence and arguments to support them. Everyone knows what I told you. Tell me what I got wrong.

@policytensor Don't count your chickens until they're hatched. If the US were acting rationally it wouldn't have entered this war in the first place.

A lot of told-you-so’s. Here’s the time-stamps. (1) Feb 26, (2) March 6, (3) March 30, (4) April 11.

@policytensor Nothing he wrote here is inconsistent with a ground war.

You told us to expect a ground war.

The heroes of declining nations are always the same... Sir John Glubb, ‘The Fate of Empires’, 1976

Let's take a step back and consider the bigger picture. Strategic goals on day one of the war: • Israel: eliminate Iran and Hezbollah as threats to Israel • Iran: survive, deter future aggression Fast forward to today, six weeks in, and it's obvious the Israeli war effort has failed. Their ideal state for Iran is Balkanization, or a second Syria, unable to mount any cohesive efforts against Israel. But the Iranian state remains stable, the regime change attempts failed. The IDF again failed to do more than push a few miles into Lebanon. Whatever the Israelis were attempting to do to destroy Hezbollah with the cooperation of the Lebanese government also seems to have failed. And Hezbollah seems much stronger than anyone assumed before this conflict. The Israeli ability to achieve these goals hinged on sucking the US into maximal commitment in war against Iran. A second GWOT would have been ideal, with the US bogged down in Iran for years or even decades. At the moment, this too seems to have failed. While Iran has suffered substantial damage to its infrastructure, its government has survived. But what about its second goal, deterrence? Here's how things have changed since the start of this conflict: • US bases in the Gulf region have been largely abandoned, many have suffered heavy damage ("uninhabitable" according to the NYT). The US has completely withdrawn from Syria and mostly withdrawn from Iraq. This is an unprecedented retreat. • The US radar network that protects Israel and the Gulf states has been mostly destroyed • Iran has demonstrated that it's both able and willing to light the region on fire and blockade it if threatened • They've also demonstrated that their state is strong enough to withstand a major air US campaign • The passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz has been reduced from a 21mi wide corridor to one that's only ~3mi wide, between Larak and Qeshm. This makes future closures of the strait trivial. Even a small team of a few dozen IRGC personnel can now shut off 20% of global oil flows • The broader political balance in the region is now up in the air. The GCC has suffered enormous economic damage. A new security architecture may emerge in response to this, possibly one that favors Iran This is an improved position for Iran as compared to before the conflict, which is remarkable. They've made it clear that there's no reasonable path to the US/Israeli strategic goals. Continuing the air campaign or some kind of limited land invasion won't move the needle. If the air campaign didn't work before, it's even less likely to work now. Now that we're in a period of diplomacy, the Iranians are attempting to secure the long-term consolidation of their gains. They also stand a chance of extracting some incredible concessions: • International acceptance of a toll regime on the strait • The lifting of (some) sanctions • Unfreezing of billions in Iranian funds (most of which are currently stored in Qatar) • Normalization of relations with various states in Europe and Asia If the Iranians play this game correctly, they can achieve some or all of these things while suffering no casualties (this is the power of diplomacy). The key to this is driving a wedge, no matter how minor, between the US and Israel. By refusing to compromise on a ceasefire in Lebanon and linking the status of the strait to that ceasefire, the Iranians seem to have done this. They need to make it clear that an Israeli violation of the ceasefire will result in the closure of the strait. This will ensure that the US continues to exert pressure on Israel to maintain the ceasefire. Exploiting this wedge is Iran's path to the long-term attrition of Israel. This conflict has brought the contradictions in the US/Israeli relationship to a head in an unprecedented way. So while the "fog of peace" remains largely impenetrable, don't expect the Iranians to go around signaling as loudly as possible that they'll be imposing tolls on the strait going forward. This may be their intention, but they're more likely to achieve it if they come to an agreement with the US behind the scenes and give Trump a way to sell it to the American public. They also might be willing to negotiate on it in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The Iranian state and people will be best served by a peace in which they can extract the most concessions with the least cost to themselves. They're playing a delicate game, and the victory they could achieve here would have been almost unimaginable for most just two months ago.

We are told that security in the Middle East requires defeating Iran, security in East Asia requires defeating China, and security in Europe requires defeating Russia. We never discuss security in terms of how to learn to live together by harmonising interests and managing competition. This is by design. This is hegemonic peace, in which security depends on defeating rivals rather than managing a balance of power. Subsequently, security relies solely on deterrence rather than reassurance; diplomacy is dismissed as appeasement; peace agreements are temporary and deceptive; and war is peace. Our rivals do not have legitimate security concerns, as their policies are allegedly always motivated by aggressive, irrational, or expansionist behaviour. We have convinced ourselves that our liberal hegemony is a force for good, and that our opponents oppose our dominance because they reject our benign values of freedom. Discussing the security concerns of adversaries is believed to “legitimise” their policies, which is treasonous. The world is divided into good guys (liberal democracies) and bad guys (autocracies). We should not ask how defeating Russia, as the world's largest nuclear power, is a rational security strategy, or why our governments refuse to even speak with Moscow to discuss the European security architecture and end the war. Our governments have relabelled nuclear deterrence as nuclear blackmail to signal that there can be no more constraints. All empires can become irrational during decline. Leaders take greater risks to avoid decline, legitimacy crises at home must be distracted with enemies abroad, outdated strategies from a bygone era of strength are still embraced, and there is a tendency to double down on narratives of being indispensable, representing universal values, and dismissing all opposition as illegitimate and dangerous. Are we the fanatics?

@JucheAffirmer @philippilk Thank you for your service

@philippilk there are a few of us - you and me definitely included - who can at least lean back and say "we told you so!"

Israeli press is far more realistic about the situation in the Middle East than the American press. The whole venture was a complete dud. Now the rest of us get an ungodly economic catastrophe for our troubles. 🇮🇱

@HighWarlord_Del @RavensOfAeneas @AuronMacintyre Many if not most conservatives have libertarian economic ideology

@MorganDowd77 @RavensOfAeneas @AuronMacintyre Lolbertarians aren't even worth factoring in or taking serious. They're irrelevant clowns every other group can and will bulldoze when they get around to it.

“If the left would just stop doing the thing that literally defines its entire political coalition I could work with them” You are a gazelle begging a lion to become vegetarian