Vivek

Harsh but fair. Mostly harsh. Prove me wrong... if you can.

@JesseKellyDC I defend enthusiastically the decision to firebomb and nuke Japan in 1945, and I legitimately cannot believe how insane so much of the rhetoric around this War has been by the neocon Right. I get supporting the war. I don't get clamoring for mass death.

Just so I’m clear on this, you want America to drop napalm on Tehran and burn 100,000 civilians to death?

In other words, the choice to separate or not was made in 1787, not in 1861. States die on their own vine, or separately entreat with and re-subordinate themselves to foreign powers, or they re-design & tighten the continental belt that bound them together in the first place.

And the reason I explain it all is b/c when you understand the text and structure of the Constitution in THAT context, the secession of states is absurd on its face. The Constitution saved the original states from insolvency, default, and from foreign encroachment.

Reminder on this glorious anniversary: Secession may not have been treason in a strict sense, but states did not have the right to secede, and the Union was well within its right to use the force of arms to stop it.

For what it's worth, I really do think it's time to close this chapter. If all this is over and diplomacy prevails by the close of April, we should hopefully all be able to move on. Israel can say that the 2 & a half year war it waged in response to October 7th rescued its hostages and destroyed the ability of Hamas & Hezbollah to receive the support & sponsorship it had enjoyed, and had also further secured & fortified its strategic position in the region with a new and prosperous set of economic ties with Arab nations. The United States has at long last gotten its revenge & reprisal for the Beirut bombing in 1982, the Khobar Towers bombing in '96, all of the insurgent violence against troops during the Iraq War, the capture of American sailors in 2016, and also the Americans who were killed and taken hostage on O7. It has fully repudiated the 1979 Revolution as well as the 2015 JCPOA, humiliated the Ayatollah and decapitated the last remnants of the revolutionary generation who so destroyed the beauty of a once great nation, and written with blood, fire, and smoke the price tag of nuclear enrichment. And just when it looked like we had gotten in over our heads, the CIA & military executed one of the most dazzling military operations in the entire history of civilization in the course of rescuing a pair of pilots shot down deep in Iranian territory before the IRGC could get them. By all accounts, that was an amazing victory. The rescue of that last pilot was & is of greater meaning in this war than the second strikes on the uranium enrichment facilities. Just because you might not love where we are right now, whether it's b/c you hated going in (I was also not thrilled with that) or b/c you think ending now is premature, if you're blackpilling over this whole thing, step back and appreciate just how awesome that was. But there was an economic and a political cost to this too, which I always worried about, and which was downplayed perilously. That can be cured and resolved with time, focus, and a return to the more urgent priorities of the present and the insurgency at home. In its own way, the IRGC flexes even greater power than it used to, but realistically the Strait of Hormuz was always Iran's, much like the Gulf of America belongs to us. But its apparatus of control is subject to a new set of conditions, which will also serve as a doctrine for the limited role that America will have in the region going forward. In removing itself from regime-change invasions and fraught occupations, the United States seeks to protect its interests & relationships merely by ensuring that commerce is not disrupted by terrorism, and that China, as a heavily reliant importer of energy from the Middle East, can plainly see and feel the cost of its imperial aggression. As much as this war hurt us, it hurt China more. The other loser is NATO. This Iran War revealed the bankruptcy and assymetry of that alliance, how it was used to subsidize the self destruction of Europe and hamper the U.S. in furthering NATO's own interests. When Russia knocks at their neighbor, they jump to act & pretend that any hesitation from us is a betrayal of the alliance. But it couldn't be bothered to lend base space for strikes against Iranian weaponry. Its members pledge greater GDP contribution while their Islamic insurgent political coalitions exercise veto power against participation in limited engagements against common enemies. Trump did not kill this alliance. It killed itself. Trump simply ripped off the scab and exposed the wound. Whether this was a good idea or not, clarity helps. If diplomacy prevails over the coming months, no one in November will mind this. The coalition that saved America in 2024 from communist takeover is divided but not destroyed. Trump must refocus on domestic priorities with all deliberate speed & energy. There is a lot to rebuild, much more to rebuild here at home. Strangely, I'm quite confident about it.

Y'all...

Yesterday you were all worried about nuclear annihilation, war crimes, and escalation. Today we witness a ceasefire between major powers.

I do not want "peace"™️. I want terms that favor my country. I prefer that those terms actualize by means of nonviolence. I didn't love this Iran War. But my attitude arc went in the opposite direction of most others. Support for the war started off poor and then got worse for Trump. I started off in the negative, and I'm still not thrilled, but my continuing negativity to the war was predicated on Trump being unable to close it out quickly. Now that ceasefire has been embraced, whether I think the initial strike was a good idea in the first place is irrelevant. It was ordered, it was done, and now the only thing that matters is terms that favor the U.S.

This is why I never panicked.

BREAKING via NYT The Islamic Republic of Iran has accepted Pakistan’s ceasefire proposal with the United States. The acceptance comes after the Chinese government interceded and asked the Islamic Republic to offer some flexibility.

Turns out that to create the future of STAR TREK, all you needed to do was inflict violence, punishment, and forced separation upon 1 - 1.5% of the population and discriminate against those with face tatoos and gang signs. Cheers @nayibbukele.