Links - 19th March 2026 (2 - Iran War)

Hannah Chan | Facebook - "“Dubai influencers are being paid to push a certain narrative!!” Or maybe.. People who live in Dubai are defending Dubai simply because we have a ton of trust and loyalty to UAE based on how competent the government is and how well we are taken care of. The same way a loyal client/customer would defend a product from inaccurate hate. It’s so crazy to see a lot of the UK ppl use this as an opportunity to hate Dubai. I’m even hearing people from the UK saying things like “this is what you get for dodging UK taxes and moving to Dubai.” As someone who is living in Dubai, the day to day streets is nowhere NEAR as chaotic as how western media is portraying. The past few days I’ve gone to Armani Hotel, Nobu, the gym, and this morning I just got back from Sauna. I can still order food on deliveroo. My housekeeper just came for their weekly clean. The streets are quieter, but everything still feels very peaceful.  I’m not saying nothing is happening. I’m saying a ton of news outlets online are cherry picking footage and painting a picture of Dubai being in shambles, stuff going up in flames, when it’s not riot on the streets. This photo was taken this morning from my gym. Don’t Western media trick you into thinking that there’s random explosions everywhere and ppl are hiding in shelters, as the norm. Myself & a ton of others have trust in the UAE government because they’ve shown a track record in being competent and taking care of their people. As someone with a British passport, I can’t say the same about the UK. That is the reason you see ppl defending Dubai. Not because influencers are paid to push propaganda or because we aren’t allowed to post any negativity."

British man charged in Dubai for alleged filming of Iranian missiles - "A 60-year-old British man has been charged under cyber-crime laws in Dubai after allegedly filming Iranian missiles over the city... The tourist was detained under a law in the United Arab Emirates that prohibits publishing or sharing material that could disturb public security, according to Detained in Dubai, which provides legal assistance in the country... The CEO of Detained in Dubai, Radha Stirling, said 21 people had been "charged together under the UAE's cybercrime laws in connection with videos and social media posts relating to the recent missile strikes". She said police found a video of an Iranian missile strike in Dubai on the British man's phone. She told the BBC the formal charges were "very vague". "I've reviewed the charge sheet and, from reading it, you wouldn't know what they've done wrong," Stirling said. "We're seeing more and more people being charged under the UAE's cyber-crime rules." She added that the man's family had been able to speak to him after he was detained. Stirling said she believed the UAE was cracking down on people filming missiles in order to "maintain the facade that it is safe for tourists". Criticism of the government is illegal in the UAE, and it exercises strict control over the flow information out of the country. UK-based human rights group Amnesty International has said the UAE has "continued to criminalise the right to freedom of expression through multiple laws and to punish actual or perceived critics of the government"."
Be Careful What You Say When Visiting These Countries (Insulting The Government Could Land You In Serious Trouble) - "Multiple foreign tourists have been arrested in Dubai and beyond for seemingly harmless activities (via Christian Science Monitor). In 2014, a boy was detained for posting a video mocking teenagers' fashion sense in the city, while a more recent and absurd case saw an Irishman detained at the border over a Google review of a previous employer (via BBC)."
‘If you make negative videos, you could be deported’: Dubai Police video warning Indians in UAE goes viral amid Iran’s attack - "A video message attributed to the Dubai Police is circulating widely on social media, warning Indian residents in the UAE against filming and sharing “negative” content such as accident clips or fire incidents. The speaker in the video says those who post such videos could face “direct deportation,” stressing that such content harms Dubai’s image and spreads misinformation"
Dubai Police Warn of Deportation for Spreading Negative Information on Social Media - "Authorities in the UAE have warned people for spreading negative information about the nation. A video of a Dubai Police officer giving an awareness speech has been shared on the internet, in which arguing social media users should not spread misinformation or negative information or videos about Dubai. Doing so will prompt action from authorities, which can lead to deportation."

Sarah Tuttle-Singer | Facebook - "Relief is sweeping across the world today as Greta Thunberg has emerged to excoriate Israel and the United States for harming the environment during their war with Iran. Apparently, the most urgent ecological concern in the Middle East right now is not the prospect of a nuclear Iran — which, inconveniently, might actually end the world and therefore damage the environment in a rather permanent way — but rather the carbon footprint of the people trying to prevent that from happening. Thank goodness someone is finally speaking up. Western moralist celebrities were quick to join the chorus. Roger Waters is reportedly already composing a new protest anthem that approximately 17 people will stream — 11 of them on a kibbutz in the Galilee. Mark Ruffalo has taken a break from his artisanal kambucha to explain that Israel remains the real problem. Susan Sarandon is once again bravely standing with “the oppressed,” a category that somehow never seems to include Israelis under missile fire or Iranian protestors murdered by the IRGC And just like that, Cynthia Nixon has joined in as well, reminding us that nothing says geopolitical expertise like a celebrity social media caption. It’s always comforting to see the international commentariat spring into action with such moral clarity. Especially when that clarity somehow manages to miss the small detail that a regime openly pursuing nuclear weapons while funding terror proxies across the region might pose a slightly larger threat to humanity — and, yes, to the environment — than the jets trying to stop it. But nuance has never been the point, right? Virtue signaling, on the other hand, remains a renewable resource."

The doomsayers are wrong on Iran. The war is already a success - "For decades, “anti-war” pundits, Democrats, Iranian shills from the Obama era, the United Nations, right-wing isolationists, think tank experts, and others have issued hysterically dire predictions of the tragedy that would befall the world if the United States moved against the Islamic regime in Iran. You could fill a thick book with quotes from experts bringing up the specter of World War III. Only a few months ago, groyper cult leader and podcaster Tucker Carlson predicted that Iran’s “fearsome arsenal of ballistic missiles” would “easily kill thousands of Americans” in the first week of conflict. Carlson predicted that the “global bloc called BRICS, which represents the majority of the world’s land mass,” would come to the aid of Iran, and the conflict could “easily become a world war.” Well, none of that has come true. Not even close. Yet, the public is being subjected to a campaign of demoralization, historical illiteracy, and lies. We’re less than two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, and an average American might be under the impression it’s the Vietnam War all over again. War never comes without a price. The truth about military conflicts shouldn’t be sugarcoated. No one knows how war will turn out. It will almost certainly be messy and expensive, and the media have a responsibility to report all the ugly and gory details. But the joint American and Israeli campaign to defang the Islamic Republic has been perhaps the most efficient and successful large-scale military operation in modern history, already meeting most of its objectives. You’d never know it reading the establishment media. “Even as Iran has been ‘pummeled’ by Israeli and American air strikes, with its military capabilities greatly diminished, Tehran continues to demonstrate resolve, both in adapting and expanding its military tactics,” reports ABC News, employing the media’s prevailing defeatist tone. By “diminished” capacity, ABC means that the U.S. and Israel have complete control of the Iranian airspace while suffering limited casualties. The regime’s air defense systems, supplied by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, are largely destroyed. We are now methodically demolishing Iran’s military infrastructure, control headquarters, manufacturing plants, and, almost surely, the cleric’s nuclear program. By “diminished,” ABC News means there is no real military hierarchy in Iran. Indeed, the Iranian air force and navy no longer functionally exist. The U.S. has already stopped the clerics from obtaining a “fearsome arsenal of ballistic missiles” and reaching a line of immunity that would have made conflict far more deadly. In 2024, the regime launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. Today, it fires one or two at a time. And the attacks decrease every day. The Iranians are now relying on low-cost drones. No BRICS nation, incidentally, not Russia nor China, has come to the aid of the mullahs. The regime, in fact, has launched missiles at two BRICS members, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in its attempt to widen the conflict. Even if Putin wanted to help the Islamists, he probably wouldn’t know who to call. The entire leadership of the regime was decapitated in the first minutes of the conflict. A pinpoint obliteration of an enemy’s top brass is unprecedented in modern war. Yet, outlets such as Reuters want us to believe that the U.S. military thinks, “Iran’s leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of imminent collapse.” Largely intact? Except, I guess, for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei; Aziz Nasirzadeh, the minister of defense; Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Ali Shamkhani, the head of the Supreme National Security Council; Mohammad Shirazi, the chief of the military bureau … and, well, you get the idea. Over 60, and counting, of the top regime leaders are buried under rubble... One of the pressing issues is that the Islamic Republic has now reportedly closed the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of the world’s oil flows each day. CNN reports that the Trump administration “did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes.” This claim, almost surely leaked to the stenographers at the network by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, flies in the face of credulity. The Pentagon has been dealing with threats to strait for over 40 years. But if you’re really worried about the Strait of Hormuz, just imagine what the regime could do to world oil supplies if it were allowed to have a nuclear weapon or Chinese Communist Party supersonic anti-ship missiles. The objective of the assault was to stop that from happening. It’s perfectly healthy to debate the necessity to attack revolutionary Iran, which has waged a 47-year violent war against the U.S. through its proxies. Anyone using even a modicum of historical context should admire the extraordinary power and precision of the American military campaign... None of this is to say there aren’t questions, either... Many of the experts who warned an attack on Iran would unleash an apocalypse now caution that if the clerics hold on, they will be extra mad at us, more radicalized, and more incentivized to pursue nuclear weapons. Will they be more dangerous than the government that funded murderous proxy armies across the Middle East? Or the one that murdered tens of thousands of its own peaceful protesters over a few days’ time? Will they be more incentivized than the mullahs who built cement-reinforced nuclear facilities 300 feet under granite mountains? It’s doubtful. But if that’s the case, we’ll have to face them again in the future. There’s no panacea. But Epic Fury, at the very least, ensures that the regime is now weaker in every way imaginable."

The Paradox of Survival in Iran - "Reports of more than 100 elementary schoolgirls killed at a school in southern Iran—amid the first wave of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian territory—haunt a nation long accustomed to mourning its children. For almost half a century, Iranians have watched countless young lives extinguished by their own government: protesters shot in the streets, prisoners executed after sham trials, teenagers murdered in custody. This is the paradox of survival in Iran. Iranians are being asked to demonstrate moral clarity about a war that endangers them from two fronts. It should be unsurprising that impromptu celebrations occurred across Iran after the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members of the regime’s security apparatus were killed. Instead, such celebrations were swiftly criticized. Some even condemned them as callous toward civilian suffering. And on March 2, members of Iran’s women’s national soccer team refused to sing the national anthem before a match in Australia—a courageous act of defiance that spoke loudly against the regime, even as non-Iranians abroad rally under its flag in opposition to war. Some players sought asylum in Australia. They too were scrutinized. But such judgments often come from a place of distance—from people who have never lived under a theocracy that imprisons, tortures, and kills with impunity. For those inside Iran—or those who have fled its repression—the moral calculus of survival looks very different... The international order promises universal human rights. Yet when a state itself becomes the chief violator of those rights, the system often offers little more than reports, statements of concern, and carefully worded condemnations. For too many Iranians, justice has never arrived. During the nationwide uprising that shook Iran in early 2026, human rights monitors documented thousands of deaths as security forces carried out a lethal crackdown on protesters. But according to local health officials, the true death toll could be as high as 30,000. When authorities cut internet and phone service across Iran, families were left searching for missing loved ones at makeshift morgues. For many Iranians, this violence is not an abstraction. It is the air they breathe. This context helps explain why many people inside the country have reacted to the deaths of regime figures with relief. Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh described the desperation bluntly in an interview earlier this year. Speaking about public sentiment inside Iran, she said that “many people are waiting for this strike. Many who have been driven to the brink see it as their last hope.” Many of us, including Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, called for "highly targeted actions against Iran's supreme leader and senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guard.” This does not mean Iranians welcome war. On the contrary, they long to end the war waged against them by the Islamic Republic. A friend in Iran, reaching me through a rare satellite connection after the fighting began, etched her experience into my memory. “If you have never lived in a prison state, if you’ve never had to search rows of body bags for your child, you cannot understand why we celebrated when the attacks killed our oppressors," she said. "It felt like long-awaited justice." Then her voice faltered. “My children are afraid of the bombs,” she explained. “And I am afraid for their future if this regime survives.”... For decades, Iranians have appealed to the international community to hold the Islamic Republic regime accountable for systematic abuses. We have filed reports, documented atrocities, and testified before international bodies. And for decades, those inside Iran have risked their lives to expose the regime’s atrocities. When justice is consistently denied, people begin to see its sudden arrival—even in violent form—as something else entirely. Not vengeance. Recognition. Recognition that the suffering they endured was real. That their tormentors were not untouchable. That the world had finally noticed."

Elica Le Bon الیکا‌ ل بن on X - "It is not inhumane to care that Iranian school girls were killed. It is inhumane to need the missile to be fired by the U.S. or Israel before deciding to care. That protest doesn't come from your heart. It comes from your hate. Trust me, we feel it."
@JudeanGeneral ll 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 on X - "Gazan children casualties due to Ham@s use of human shields only mattered as they could try to blame Israel. > 50,000 massacred in Iran by the terrorist regime and total silence as no angle to blame Israel or Jews. Pathetic hypocrisy."
Dragmits on X - "They still try to pin it on the Jews."

Partisanship on Iran Is Dangerous for America - WSJ - "Every past president since Bill Clinton, Republican and Democrat alike, has declared that Iran couldn’t be permitted to develop nuclear weapons. Not one acted to prevent it. Every president since Ronald Reagan has condemned Iran’s role in terrorism against American citizens, interests and allies. Not one acted to stop it. Instead each president left his successor with a more dangerous Iran and a more complicated threat to address. Last June President Trump undertook a limited military operation designed to interrupt Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and discourage the country from continuing its nuclear program. In the face of Iran’s refusal to forswear nuclear weapons and evidence that it was rapidly increasing the number, sophistication and range of its missiles, Mr. Trump began the current military campaign. If he hadn’t acted, his successor would have been left with an even more dangerous choice than his predecessors left him. Three or four years from now, the Iranian missiles now hitting Iran’s neighbors could be hitting Berlin or London, perhaps even New York or Washington—perhaps with a nuclear device or at least a dirty bomb.

‘Nothing Will Remain of Tehran,’ Iranians Say Amid Heavy Bombing - The New York Times - "“Some people are comfortable with the bombings — I know that may sound strange,” said Ali. “They are upset if there is a night without bombing, and fear the war might end while the regime remains. You can see this clearly. People say we have already paid enough of a price and the Islamic republic must go.” Ali said he was sympathetic to that view. “Our lives have no value for the Islamic republic,” he said. “We are the government’s human shields.”"
Clearly, left wingers and non-Iranian Islamists know better than "Iranians" (who are all really Mossad agents)

Nathan J Robinson on X - "every senior member of this administration should be prosecuted for war crimes"
Wilfred Reilly on X - "The same people who refuse to believe any vetted US-gov or mainstream media info, ever, will absolutely 100% always accept "Javad the Islamist militia-man from Tehran" as a reputable source. Amazing."

Why are people ‘standing up’ for Iranians now? - "thousands of Iranians have been slaughtered in the streets over the last few weeks alone and it’s been getting very little coverage in the press. Organizations, politicians, FB groups, and others that present themselves as peace activists, or who are ‘standing for the oppressed’, have also said very little (if anything) about it, and now they are speaking up about the school being hit. They are also circulating images of Iranian school girls wearing hijabs that show a bit of hair in front which totally ignores the reality of what these girls and women have to deal with every day of their lives. If they went out in to the streets showing this much hair, they would be beaten. Masha Amini was beaten for showing too much hair and she died of her injuries. They’ve been virtually ignoring the plight of Iranian women along with the thousands of Iranians who have been murdered in the streets over the last few weeks, and now they are speaking up. Why now? Obviously it can’t be out of concern for the Iranian people. If they are only speaking up now because America is involved, this is using the suffering of Iranians only to demonize America - the same way they use the suffering of Palestinians only to demonize Israel. Peace activists should be spreading peace. The politicians and organizations who spew nothing but vitriol are not peace activists. These are hate movements disguising themselves as peace movements and too many people are being fooled by it."

Danielle Gill on X - "Former Iranian women’s soccer player @Shiva_Amini_11 just said Iran’s oppressive Islamic regime “took everything” from her. “I lost my home. I lost my family. I lost my safety.” Why haven’t we heard a peep from the feminists on this? Follow: @DanielleDSouzaG"
Feminists will condemn her as an Islamophobe and supporting "imperialism"

U.S. Senator John Fetterman on X - "Why do Democrats now universally condemn what achieves a top, longstanding Democratic priority?"
Kamala Harris says Iran is ‘greatest adversary’ of US | Kamala Harris News | Al Jazeera
Hillary Clinton Says She ‘Will Not Hesitate to Take Military Action’ If Iran Attempts to Get Nuclear Weapon - ABC News

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕷𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖘𝖘™️ on X - "Who had liberals siding with the Ayatollah and the Iranian regime? Literally everyone."

Melissa 🇨🇦 on X - "So Canadian Armed Forces & bases were ATTACKED by Iran in Kuwait, and 1) Carney didn’t tell Canadians 2) Canada didn’t respond back, and 3) Carney said Canada would never get involved in the War on Iran, even though we were attacked 🤯 This is weakness and very concerning"
Naturally Carney supporters kept insisting it didn't happen

NP View: Iran is no longer a foreign war - "Iran committed an act of war against Canada and the Canadian government kept it from the public until it was reported by the media — 11 days later. When asked on Thursday why the fact that an Iranian missile hit a Canadian air base in Kuwait on March 1 was not disclosed, Prime Minister Mark Carney was visibly annoyed. “I’m not the only spokesperson for the government,” he said. The tone is revealing, but the secrecy should be unacceptable to anyone who takes the defence of Canada seriously. Article content Article content Carney and his ministers have repeatedly said that Canada will not be involved in the war in Iran, but at no point since March 1, did any of them explain that the Iranians had attacked the Canadian section of the Ali Al-salem Air Base, and how that might inform the government’s reaction... the Liberal government’s position on Iran is that it supports the attack, but objects on both legal and moral grounds... One wonders whether the prime minister informed his Liberal colleagues that a Canadian base had been hit. Would that change anything, or is the anti-Israeli faction of the party too strong for Canada to recognize that its sovereignty has been challenged in the direct form of a missile? Article content Article content The threat from Iran is hardly theoretical. In addition to targeting U.S. bases and civilian infrastructure around the Middle East, the Iranian regime has launched missiles at other NATO members, including Turkey and a British base in Cyprus. If this continues, the insistence that Canada will not be involved in the war begins to look less like prudence and more like an abdication of duty and a rejection of the basic responsibilities of the state, both to its own defence and the defence of its allies. When it comes to Iran, the government is barely willing to admit there’s a problem. There are potentially hundreds of agents linked to the regime in Canada, including members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which orchestrates terrorist attacks around the world and is responsible for blowing up a plane full of Canadians in 2020. Since 2022, immigration officials have suspended the travel visas of 239 people with concerning links to the Iranian regime, and some 32 have been named by the Canada Border Services Agency as being “inadmissible” to Canada. Yet only one has been deported. When asked about this at a committee this week, the CBSA’s asylum policy chief, Brett Bush, gave an outrageous answer: “One of the big problems today … is access to flights into Iran.” All that does is prompt the question: why weren’t they deported beforehand? Article content In a statement to CTV News earlier this week about the threat from Iranian agents in Canada, CSIS said that “a violent extremist attack remains a realistic possibility,” just as it was before the war. Article content CSIS has also intercepted death threats from Iranian agents against anti-regime dissidents in Canada. In a speech in November, CSIS Director Dan Rogers made the threat from Iran explicit: “We’ve had to re-prioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime.” Article content The Islamic Republic of Iran is a direct threat to Canada, as it is to the rest of the West. This isn’t some foreign war. Canada’s leaders should respond accordingly."
Time to blame Trump, even if Iran's attacks on non-American and non-Israeli targets were deliberate. Of course, if Israel or the US accidentally attack the wrong target, they're evil monsters

Raza Ahmad Rumi on X - "Some segments of the Iranian diaspora cheering Iran’s destruction reflect a deeper identity politics. As Vali Nasr notes, they seek distance from the “Global South” and aspire to a Western—often white—political identity. Support for Israel or even MAGA politics is “integration.”"
Constance on X - "Only someone deeply disconnected from Iranian history would frame Iranian identity through the racial politics of the “Global South.” Iran is not a colonial construct searching for “whiteness.” It is a 7,000-year-old civilization and one of the world’s oldest continuous nation-states. Iranians supporting Israel, the West, or democracy is not “identity integration.” It is a rejection of the Islamist regime that hijacked their country in 1979. Iranians have resisted religious domination for centuries in many forms. Islam in Iran is not an organic expression of Iranian civilization — it is a colonial inheritance from the Arab conquest that has repeatedly clashed with Iran’s deeper civilizational identity. That tension runs through Iranian history: movements to reclaim Iranian culture, language, and statehood from clerical domination appear again and again. Anyone who wants to understand this should read Abbas Milani’s The Lost Wisdom of Persia and V. S. Naipaul’s Among the Believers and Beyond Belief, which examine the psychology of societies shaped by conquest and religious imperialism. Reducing that to racial aspiration is not analysis — it is projection."

The Myth of Islamophobia

The Myth of Islamophobia
The idea that Muslim communities are systemically discriminated against throughout Western Europe is pure fantasy.

Listening to many Muslim activists and leaders, you would think that Western Europe is a hotbed of anti-Muslim hatred. That Muslims cannot leave their homes without fearing for their safety. Or could not participate in mainstream society without facing debilitating prejudice. 

Scottish former First Minister Humza Yousaf complained earlier this year that the current political climate “certainly makes me feel unsafe, and I suspect makes most Muslims question whether their future could possibly be in this country.” In the same vein, the UK Labour government is toying with the idea of adopting a more expansive definition of Islamophobia that would bend any criticism of Islam or Muslims as hate speech. According to the French Council of the Muslim Faith, French Muslims feel they are “no longer safe from constant suspicion.” One survey in the Netherlands earlier this year apparently found that anti-Muslim “discrimination is structural, widespread, and normalised.” The Islamic Commission of Spain similarly warned against the “widespread spread of hate speech against Islam, Muslims, mosques.” 

Reality tells a different story, however. In fact, many Western European societies expend vast amounts of time, money, and energy in accommodating Muslim communities—even to the detriment of the native population. A cursory glance at the news recently will tell you all you need to know. In Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta this week, the government has banned the serving of pork in public schools and mandated halal meals. This means that any meat offered in school cafeterias must be slaughtered according to Muslim religious practices—the animal is killed by a Muslim, in the name of Allah, by slitting its throat and draining its blood, without first being stunned. 

Something similar is happening in schools in Barcelona. Not because of government mandates, but because of rapid demographic change. In one district, Sant Martí, 80% of public schools serve halal meals to pupils. None of these schools, however, offer a special menu for Lent, the time of year when Christians traditionally fast or remove certain food groups from their diets. 

Pork is vanishing from school cafeterias in Vienna, Austria, too. It was reported earlier this week that traditional dishes like schnitzel and roast pork are less and less being given to pupils at lunchtimes, and many schools have stopped offering meals containing pork altogether. This is hardly a surprising development, given that 41% of all Viennese schoolchildren are Muslim, as of this year. That makes Islam the dominant religion in Vienna’s schools. 

Across the border in Germany, even more sweeping accommodations are being made for the growing Muslim population. In the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, the local government decided last month to introduce Islamic Studies as a new subject in schools, subject to student numbers and teacher qualifications. It also plans to give Muslims in the state two new public holidays, allowing civil servants, students, and employees to take days off for Ramadan and Eid al-Adha. Naturally, non-Muslims won’t be able to take advantage of these two new holidays, and Muslims in Germany will still be given time off for Christmas and Easter. This is also a somewhat odd decision, given that Muslims currently account for less than 5% of Schleswig-Holstein’s population. In fact, there are currently more Catholics than Muslims in Schleswig-Holstein, and yet Catholic festivals like Corpus Christi curiously don’t receive the same special treatment. 

In many cases, though, these accommodations aren’t enough. There have been episodes in which the Muslim minority resorts to intimidation to get special privileges for its community, forcing the native majority population to bend to its will. This August in a Paris suburb, a gang of Muslim youths managed to force the local authorities to cancel a planned screening of the Barbie movie, because it apparently “promoted homosexuality and insulted the image of women.” In immigrant-heavy Noisy-le-Sec, radical teens threatened council workers and tried to smash up equipment, stopping the film from being shown as part of a free outdoor cinema programme for deprived locals. France, which has the largest Muslim population of any country in Europe, is often held hostage by Islamists who demand that society revolve around them. 

So too is the UK. Back in 2023, four pupils at a secondary school in West Yorkshire were suspended for supposedly “desecrating” a Quran. One of the boys had taken it to school after losing a dare with his friends, and, at some point, the book was dropped to the floor and scuffed. For this, the headteacher, a local imam (who was also a councillor), and even a policeman got involved. The boy’s mother—made to cover her hair—was hauled in front of a meeting at a mosque, where she was made to apologise for her son’s apparent blasphemy. She explained that her son was terrified and that he had received death threats. Nonetheless, the police logged the Quran scuffing as a “hate incident.” Mercifully, none of the children involved were actually prosecuted. 

Even worse was what happened to one anonymous teacher at the Batley Grammar School, also in West Yorkshire. In 2021, the religious studies teacher was forced to go into hiding after he showed images of the Prophet Muhammed to his class, something forbidden by Islam. In response, large protests amassed outside the school, calling for the teacher’s sacking at the minimum. Bizarrely, instead of standing behind its member of staff for giving a completely normal lesson about freedom of speech and religion, the school immediately caved. It branded the class as having been “completely inappropriate,” as it “had the capacity to cause great offence to members of our school community.” The teacher in question was suspended and, ultimately, cleared to return to work. But how could he? He had received death threats and feared for his life. He and his family were eventually forced to move house and go into hiding. 

Few hatreds are seen as more sacred than Islamophobia. The regular, widespread arson attacks against churches in France, for example, are seldom commented on outside the right-wing and Christian media. And nowhere is this favouritism clearer than when it comes to antisemitism. Since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed in practically every Western European country. As of this week, Jews suffered the highest rate of hate crimes in England and Wales this year. The statistics equate to 106 crimes per 10,000 Jews, versus 12 crimes per 10,000 Muslims. And yet Islamophobia is almost always the chief concern of politicians and the pundit class. Even when antisemitism does get a mention, it is usually in the same breath as Islamophobia. 

None of this is to say that individual Muslims can never experience discrimination at the hands of other individuals. But to suggest that there is some kind of systemic Islamophobia in the West is pure fantasy. Muslim communities almost uniformly receive preferential treatment and protection by national and local authorities. From arresting people who burn Qurans to allowing critics of Islam to be hounded out of society, Western Europe is well and truly devoted to appeasing Muslims—even to the detriment of the native Christian populations. So long as the loudest Islamist voices are happy, the rights of everyone else are irrelevant. 

The West is in thrall to a radical, often violent, minority. We cannot keep rewarding this intimidation. If we continue bargaining away our rights, there will soon be nothing left. 

 

Links - 19th March 2026 (1 - Zohran Mamdani Islamist Bomb Attack)

Sólionath on X - "This story is totally insane; it would be hard to believe if it weren’t all documented.
- Jake Lang held a peaceful protest outside of Mamdani’s home.
- Muslims throw a bomb at Lang.
- EVERY media outlet just says “during a protest, a bomb was thrown outside Mamdani’s home.”"
Some media outlets tried to trick readers into thinking the bomb was thrown by "white supremacists" too

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on X - "Yesterday, white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism. Such hate has no place in New York City. It is an affront to our city’s values and the unity that defines who we are.  What followed was even more disturbing. Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.  I want to thank the brave men and women of the NYPD who acted quickly to keep New Yorkers safe. Our officers ran toward danger without hesitation, demonstrating once again the courage and dedication it takes to protect this city every single day.  My administration is closely monitoring the situation and I remain in close contact with our Police Commissioner."
Rabbi Poupko on X - "Your wife saw these images of the worst massacre and mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, and liked what she saw. What do you mean when you say hate has no place in New York City??? It lives in Gracie Mansion."
End Wokeness on X - "Here's what you left out: An expIosive was thrown by MusIims They were shouting "Allah Akhbar" Emir Balat and Ibrahim Nikk"

Mamdani Breaks Silence After NYPD Confirms Bomb Was Used In Terror Attempt : r/libsofreddit - "His Tweet was disgusting.  He made it sound like it was the protestors that laid the bombs.  It was the Islamist counterprotestors.  The country knew he would embolden them, but to provide cover? Damn NYC, wake up to where your woke ideology has taken you. At this rate, 9/11 is going to be a memorial to the Islamists that died piloting the planes."
Mamdani Breaks Silence After NYPD Confirms Bomb Was Used In Terror Attempt : r/libsofreddit - "'Stop Islamic takeover' protest
Islamists show up with bombs"

Meme - Melissa Chen @MsMelChen: "New NYT headline just dropped   Chaos?  That's the word they choose? Some vague, amorphous blob of disorder that could mean anything from a rowdy block party to a flock of pigeons with terrible diarrhea?   It’s propaganda by omission.   Why is it so hard to report the fact that it’s Islamist terror on Mamdani’s doorstep?"
"Chaos on Mamdani's Doorstep: 'We've Never Had Anything Like This Here'. For two hours, the streets around Gracie Mansion became the stage for a heated protest, reflecting a nation seething with angst and unease."

NYC mayor avoids 'radical Islamic terror' phrase after ISIS bomb plot - "New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned an alleged ISIS-inspired bomb plot outside Gracie Mansion but did not use the phrase "radical Islamic terror," reviving long-running criticism from the Obama era that some Democratic leaders avoid the term. Authorities said the two suspects, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, both from the Philadelphia suburbs, allegedly threw improvised explosive devices containing a compound known as the "Mother of Satan" during the protest, with one reportedly admitting he was inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Greg Kelly, the son of former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who led New York through the aftermath of both 9/11 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, critiqued Mamdani for calling out the protest as led by an alleged "White supremacist" but whiffing on the ideology behind suspected ISIS-supporters' actions.  "Imagine that: a bomb goes off in New York City, laid by ISIS-inspired terrorists. The mayor points at White supremacy as the problem; White supremacy if only we could get rid of those White supremacists," Kelly said on his 77WABC radio program. After the alleged attack, Mamdani held a press conference with NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch and called out the "vile protest" against Islam led by January 6 defendant Jake Lang that allegedly inspired the two boys to attack... New York Democratic scion Andrew Cuomo, the former three-term governor and mayoral candidate, lambasted Mamdani’s response as well. "Had the bomb gone off … [it] literally would have done horrific damage. And the police, ironically, were closest to the bomb. Not Jake Lang," he said.  "The mayor puts out a statement condemning Jake Lang. I agree. And in the second part of the statement, (he) condemns the terrorists. There is no moral equivalency: Jake Lang; bigot, hateful, of course. Yes, I agree — terrorists who bring a bomb to kill people? They are not equivalent, and this city has no tolerance for terrorism or attempted terrorists, and that statement has to be made loud and clear," Cuomo said... former Mayor Eric Adams posted his own more thorough response to the situation, saying that "no one should be surprised."  "After years of hateful rhetoric and incitement, attempts to justify attacks on Jews in Israel, praise for violence like the killing of a CEO, and chants about ‘globalizing the intifada’ and ‘Death to America,’ words have now escalated into violence on the streets of New York City, with explosives being thrown," Adams said... President Donald Trump made what he described as the left’s refusal to call out "radical Islamic terrorism" a centerpiece of his 2016 platform, when he regularly criticized former President Barack Obama for failing to fully identify such attacks. "Radical Islamic terrorism, and people don't like saying that. And our president refuses to use the term. Every time another event happens, I say, 'I wonder if he'll say it this time,'" Trump said during a campaign rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He went on to criticize his 2016 opponent, former first lady Hillary Clinton, along similar lines."
Of course, left wingers blame Jake Lang, "white supremacists" and the "far right" for Islamist terror, so

Tony Lane 🇺🇸 on X - "🚨 BREAKING: The NYC mayor’s office reportedly instructed NYPD officers to prevent Jake Lang, one of the intended victims of the protest bombing, from entering a press conference this morning. Many are asking: why block the victim? ⬇️ 🇺🇸"

Was a Bomb at Gracie Mansion Zohran Mamdani’s Wake-Up Call? - "The attack is a sobering reminder that New York City remains a top target of Islamic terrorists. Moreover, it illustrates the problems with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s hostility to policing protests—and his discomfort with naming radical Islam when it rears its head...   That federal prosecutors have concurrent jurisdiction relieves New Yorkers from worrying about the challenges of a state case. A New York judge would have been legally barred from holding Balat and Kayumi in pretrial detention based on the risk they posed to the public. Local prosecutors would have been obliged to comply with the state’s onerous discovery rules, which have led to a sharp uptick in case dismissals. Unfortunately, not every serious crime in New York City will come with such a convenient federal off-ramp.  Saturday’s attack also highlights the problems with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s past discomfort with—if not explicit opposition to—how the NYPD polices protests. The Left has criticized the use of policing and surveillance assets for crowd control. Mamdani has long been a proponent of dismantling the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG)—which the city formed to respond to “citywide mobilizations, civil disorders, and major events with highly trained personnel and specialized equipment”— particularly because of how it has responded to protests... the Mamdani administration can no longer deny that protests and other large gatherings are soft targets that need to be appropriately policed. Consider the context of Saturday’s events: a provocateur, Jake Lang, whose previous demonstrations have become targets for violent counter-protests; a demonstration against radical Islam at a time when the U.S. is engaged in hostilities in the Middle East; a counter-protest scheduled at the same sensitive location, Gracie Mansion; and all events known a week in advance. In spite of all this, videos and photos taken during the dueling protests show patrol and community affairs officers, as well as supervisors in uniform, but no counterterrorism assets like SRG.  This just raises more questions: Did NYPD do a threat assessment? What did it say? Why wasn’t SRG on scene? Why not have both bomb-sniffing dogs and plainclothes officers in the crowd?   At a Monday afternoon press conference, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch did tell reporters that SRG was near the protest “in a backup capacity” and that they were deployed to the scene “as soon as mayhem ensued.” But why weren’t they deployed earlier? One suspects a connection to Mamdani’s dislike of the unit.  Saturday’s incident further shows why Mamdani should not go ahead with plans to cancel the hiring of 5,000 additional cops over the next two years. The NYPD’s counterterrorism needs are substantial. The future risk of a mass-casualty event is clear. Meeting those challenges will be harder still for a department that is thousands of officers short of a full complement.   The city got lucky on Saturday. Mamdani cannot continue to rely on luck... Mamdani should work on his public responses to such attacks. The mayor’s initial statement did not issue until the following afternoon. When it did appear, it was wholly inadequate.  Mamdani began with a condemnation not of the would-be bombers but of Lang, whom he referred to by name as a white supremacist in the very first sentence. By contrast, he failed to name either of the two attackers, though their names were by then public. Nor did he allude to their motivations, despite the clear, publicly available evidence.  Mamdani’s apparent reluctance to label Saturday’s attack an act of radical Islamic terrorism is no more reassuring than his opposition to policing protests"

Jessica S. Tisch on X - "The NYPD Bomb Squad has conducted a preliminary analysis of a device that was ignited and deployed at a protest yesterday and has determined that it is not a hoax device or a smoke bomb. It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death.  Further analysis will be conducted, including on a second device.  Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi were arrested on scene yesterday and are in custody in connection with this matter. The NYPD is working on this investigation with our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI through our Joint Terrorism Task Force.  I want to again thank the brave members of the NYPD who ran towards the danger without hesitation and quickly apprehended the suspects."
Max 📟 on X - "Jake Lang engaged in peaceful, lawful free speech. Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi (not mentioned in Mamdani's tweet) tried to kill him with a nail bomb."
Violent protest is good when it pushes the left wing agenda. Peaceful protest is bad when it impedes it.
Naturally, I saw one left winger dismiss it as a firecracker in a box, and thus nothing to worry about

American AF 🇺🇸 on X - "Liberal white people will literally tell you to stop being “Islamophobic” while Muslims launch bombs over their heads… We’re dealing with the dumbest people to ever exist"

Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 on X - "Lib: Everyone is HECKIN welcome in this town,
Jihadist: ALLAHU AKBAR!!!!! *hurls IED*
You literally couldn’t make this up as comedy lol"

Thread by @waltermasterson on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I was in the middle of saying “as a born and raised New Yorker, we welcome everyone into this city” when he threw that over my head.  And I still stand by it. As a born and raised in New Yorker, everyone is welcome.  Everyone except chief goatfucker Jake Lang. For those of you unfamiliar with Jake, he’s the one who lost to the letter S. If you appreciate my work go to my Patreon and show some love: I can not stress this enough, it was right near our feet and it did not look real. We just stood there laughing.  Meanwhile the incel femoids ran away having been totally jestermogged. Their cortisol levels have yet to recover."
Meme - "*photo of bomb*
Readers added context they thought people might want to know: NYPD Bomb Squad confirms it was real, describing it as "an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death""
Cirsova: Winning Secrets on Kickstarter Now! on X - "When people tell you the portrayals of some of the liberal characters in Camp of the Saints were too on-the-nose, show them this thread."
Left wingers could be about to be executed by Jihadists, and they would still be blaming the "far right"

Nick Sortor on X - "Uber and Lyft drivers keep CANCELLING @ScottPresler, @BreannaMorello, and my ride requests when they figure out we’re inside DHS headquarters. Gee, I wonder why they’re avoiding this place 🤣 It couldn’t be because these companies have ILLEGALS driving for them, right?!"
Walter Masterson on X - "Ordering Uber drivers into an ICE facility to torture them is gross behavior."
No surprise his sense of danger is completely warped

Vince Dao on X - "The NYPD has now confirmed that it was a real bomb.  So, it's actually quite fitting that the conservatives fled while the leftists sat there and laughed, clueless to the danger.  You guys literally have undeveloped amygdalas. You have no survival instincts, you can't process danger, and that explains your politics.  While leftists scream in support of refugees, illegals, and repeat criminals, the conservative brain correctly identifies "DANGER." Because we have normal human brains.  You guys don't, which is why you support suicidal ideas like open borders and freeing criminals.  Leftism is *actually* a mental disorder."
Sour Patch Mom ن on X - "They might be DEAD but at least they weren't RACIST, Vince."

Senator Liz Krueger on X - "New York is no place for anti-Muslim hate or any other kind of prejudice. We don't need out-of-state provocateurs sowing fear, division, and violence in our city."
Izengabe on X - "Just to be clear a peaceful protest was taking place in NYC. A Muslim jihadist threw a shrapnel bomb containing nuts, bolts, & screws at the conservative protesters while shouting “Allahu Akbar". State Sen Liz Krueger (D) sides with the jihadist who threw the bomb & says there is no place in NY for the conservatives peacefully exercising their 1st Amendment rights."

New York City bomb: FBI finds explosive residue in storage unit, 2 men charged - "Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, told police after their arrests that they were inspired by the Islamic State group, according to law enforcement officials and a criminal complaint.  The men live in the Philadelphia suburbs and drove together to New York City on Saturday to carry out the attack near Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, officials said."
All of a sudden, there's nothing wrong with crossing state lines

Nima Ebadi on X - "I’m an Iranian-American living in NYC. I pay a fortune in city taxes. Last night, people chanted ‘Iran’s missiles will reply’ at a Khamenei memorial in Washington Square Park, celebrating a regime that just massacred 35,000+ Iranians. Today, the streets around Gracie Mansion descended into chaos, smoke bombs, journalists beaten, NYPD scrambling to keep up. This is what we’re funding. A city that can’t keep order and gives a platform to Islamist/leftist extremists glorifying a terrorist regime that massacres protesters and terrorizes the region.  New York, get it together."

Meme - Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance: "Political violence is never okay. Period. Where is the condemnation of this from Republicans?
Comments seem to be missing the point. It doesn't matter who it is that's committing politically oriented violence-it's always wrong and especially so when a government official like the president or the mayor's residence in NYC is the target. It needs to be condemned."
@joongkwang: "Ummm...did you or did you not ask this? You ask for condemnation and your response is, "Comments seem to be missing the point." I believe you seem to be missing the point. People have been condemning this except for the left."
Melissa Sebree AKA Your Mother @MelissaSebree: "The right wing protesters were the TARGET not the Muslim mayor..."
Sarnt @rgrSarnt: "A normal person would be embarrassed. But you're just doubling down huh?"
Hilariously, Joe Calvello, a Mamdani spokesman, condemned... Lang and the protest as "despicable and Islamophobic."

Libs of TikTok on X - "CNN's Ana Navarro is literally LYING on live TV, saying that the NYC Islamic Terrorists were trying to k*ll Mamdani. She then refuses to admit she's wrong and attempts to justify her answer. She should be fired. Absolute FAKE NEWS."
Kyle Barnes on X - "Legacy media has gotten so out of hand they're knowingly trying to spin the targeted victims of a terriorist attack as the terriorists. Its insanity."

Hans Mahncke on X - "We’ve seen it all now. What any honest person would call an IED, the New York Times calls “smoking jars of metal and fuses.”"

Meme - Hans Mahncke @HansMahncke: "The New York Times has now amended its "Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses" headline, but it's too late. Even in a world drowning in fake news, this particular masterpiece will live on in infamy."
"Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor's House. Six people were arrested after anti-Islamic protesters led by the right-wing activist Jake Lang clashed with counterprotesters near Gracie Mansion."
"Homemade Bomb Thrown at Protest Near N.Y.C. Mayor's House, Police Say. The counterprotester accused of throwing the bomb was one of six people arrested after a clash with anti-Islamic protesters led by the right-wing activist Jake Lang."
Plus they tried to make the right wing activists sound like the terrorists

Meme - Shiv Aroor @ShivAroor: "CNN deletes tweet after being called out for downplaying & mischaracterising 2 ISIS bomb-throwers as 'two teenagers' who threw bombs 'during an anti-Muslim protest'."
CNN @CNN: "Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could've been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.  But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's home. Here's what we know so far. cnn.it/4ljSgXT"
CNN @CNN" A post regarding the two individuals arrested for throwing homemade bombs outside of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's home failed to reflect the gravity of the incident thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting. It has therefore been deleted."
Readers added context they thought people might want to know: "CNN deleted the post without clarifying that it was not anti-Muslim protestors who threw the bombs, as the original post framed as likely. The two screamed Allahu Akbar while throwing the bombs. Upon arrest, they confessed and pledged allegiance to ISIS. x.com/endwokeness/st ..."
Feminists claim "boys will be boys" is used to excuse rape, but as usual they are deluded. Turns out it's used to excuse terrorism

Konstantin Kisin on X - "It didn't fail to reflect the gravity of the situation. It failed to accurately communicate who was responsible, who the intended victims were and where the blame for the attempted terrorist attack lay. In other words you didn't accidentally downplay the seriousness of it, you deliberately misrepresented what happened to conceal the truth from the public."

(8) Rebekah Jones - This is the only information that has been... | Facebook - "This is the only information that has been established as *fact* re: attack on Mamdani's home.  White supremacist and domestic terrorist Jake Lang brought a mob of other dangerous criminals to Mayor Mamdani's house for a small hate rally. His mob initiated violence, according to statements from police. The first arrest police made was one of Lang's thugs for attacking a counter-protestor unprovoked. That's getting next to zero press coverage.  During the attack on Mamdani's home by the cosplay Nazis, two men from Pennsylvania ran up to the crowd and threw IEDs at Mamdani's house.  Even though there's no evidence to suggest these men were connected to EITHER group of protesters, and even though this was an attack on Mamdami's home during a violent Nazi "protest," the media ecosystem is working overtime to paint the Nazis as victims.  Excuse me if I've gotten my Nazis crossed,  but isn't Lang the guy who tried to coerce his way into a DAYCARE not long ago, demanding to "see the children?" The same guy who didn't know how null data works in a date field, then lied and said he spoke to a woman who said she never voted when be never actually spoke to her? Same guy who begged a trans woman to save him when he was rightfully getting his ass beat in Minnesota? The same guy who has been re-arrested multiple times - including LAST MONTH! - since being released from prison only a year ago?   Lang is an actual domestic terrorist who did four years IN PRISON for committing acts of terrorism, has been released all of a year and has already been re-arrested, and they actually want you to believe his violent mob was the *target* of an attack against a Muslim mayor... which they're now claiming was orchestrated.....by a Muslim radical. When a black man was falsely accused of hitting police with snowballs a few weeks ago, MAGA, the NYPD, and social media whipped out his previous arrest (related to a YouTube prank in which a person reported a robbery even though it was a skit) to paint him as a hardened criminal.  "BUT they're investigating it as terrorism!" They investigated a car crash at Rainbow Bridge as potential terrorism, too. It wasn't. They claimed police office"
Left wingers are so deluded

Meme - SK Tedeschi @skedeschi: "It took 2.5 years of calling terrorist supporters "activists" until the leap was made to calling terrorists, in the act of terrorism, "activists"."
Jaimee Michell @JaimeeUSA: ""an activist holds a homemade explosive device" - @ABC News. You couldn't make this shit up if you tried."
"An activist holds a homemade explosive device before throwing it towards police during a protest organized by far- right influencer Jake Lang against alleged "Islamification," in front of Gracie Mansion, on March 7, 2026, in New York."
And you can see ABC News is trying to fool readers into thinking that it was the "far right" who were the terrorists

Melissa Chen on X - "NYT just cannot resist the anthropological contextualization and tender backstory meant to humanize a preferred terrorist. Behold! The Shopify savant and budding entrepreneur on the way to building a sneaker empire with only POSITIVE REVIEWS until SOMETHING nudged him of course. Always passive. Just the typical normal-kid-gone-wrong arc, as if bad things happened to him rather than him ever having the agency to do bad things."

Hans Mahncke on X - "It’s even worse than that. The article portrays this terrorist as a budding entrepreneur, a computer genius who figured out how to arbitrage in the high-end sneaker industry, and some kind of crypto whiz. And then, all of a sudden, he apparently decided to start throwing bombs at protesters. The whole framing is designed to make him and his accomplice seem like good kids who were somehow pushed over the edge by nasty right-wing protesters, as if it’s not really their fault at all."

AG on X - "We have actual video of a now-identified man screaming “Allahu Akbar” and lighting/throwing an incendiary device. Not one of these headlines accurately portrays what occurred."

Meme - memetic sisyphus: "This really is an all time photo. A protestor shouting about the pros of immigration is interrupted by an Islamic terrorist throwing a bomb jumping over him."

Meme - "The Warm Embrace of Collectivism. The Strength of Diversity *Islamist terrorist throwing bomb over white liberal*"

Meme - Islamist terrorist throwing bomb: "REALITY"
White liberal: "LEFTIST POLICY AND BELIEFS"

Meme - Elon Musk: "Libtard with the bullhorn is more dangerous"
Tony @EvacTony: "Both people in this picture are equally dangerous. #NYC *Islamist terrorist* *Unhinged left winger enabling the terrorist*"

Bonchie on X - "Completely misses the part of the story that states it was Islamists who carried out the attack, demands Republicans condemn it (they did). Immediately pivots to lying that it was Mamdani's residence that was targeted. Just perfect."
Thrillho on X - At least CATO will have a new data point for their "right-wing violence" studies..."

Laura Powell on X - "🚨 BREAKING The indictment against the two suspects in the attempted bombing in NYC has been unsealed. The document says that one suspect provided a written statement in which he pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State and wished death on infidels.  The other suspect also admitted being affiliated with ISIS."

Links - 18th March 2026 (2 - Left Wing Economics: UK)

Reeves and Miliband can't escape responsibility - "British troops are under fire from Iran, with a drone swarm striking a UK base in Iraq this week. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed, with oil prices spiralling upwards and putting further pressure on a flatlining British economy. Donald Trump has controversially lifted sanctions on Russian oil at sea in an attempt to bring down energy costs, sending a rush of funds into Vladimir Putin’s war chest. And the threadbare condition of our Armed Forces has been exposed, after decades of underinvestment.  It would be understandable if the Government were a little unsure about which problem to attack first. Addressing each would also involve making difficult choices that the Labour Party is bound to feel uncomfortable with. Restoring economic growth, after January’s figures showed no movement in GDP, for example, would entail a long-overdue reckoning with the costs of the party’s approach to net zero, taxation, labour market regulation and welfare.  So Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, have instead struck out at what they evidently consider to be the true threat to Britain: petrol stations. The pair met yesterday with retailers to warn them that they “will not tolerate” companies that “make excess profits”, and publicly criticised “price gouging”.  What they seem to mean by “gouging” is the normal operation of the price mechanism. It is perhaps understandable that a Government dedicated to micro-managing apparently every aspect of the economy might be unfamiliar with this concept. Ministers’ fundamental ignorance of basic economics may in turn explain why British growth is so dire.  Indeed, Britain’s vulnerability to external price shocks, the absence of growth, and the state of Britain’s military all stem from the same fundamental problems. We have chosen a set of policies that have made energy expensive, reduced incentives to work and invest, and devoured the funds which should have been used to defend the nation.  Mr Miliband’s quixotic drive towards net zero has been sold as building resilience and energy independence. The purpose, we were told, was to reduce our exposure to shocks such as this. It hasn’t worked. Energy prices are rising sharply from an already high baseline. The enormous Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields sit idle as the value of what they contain soars.  Tapping these resources – and reversing Mr Miliband’s attempt to close the North Sea – would not resolve the problem of high energy prices in one stroke. But it would secure a rush of revenue into the Treasury, and provide households and businesses struggling under current circumstances with a helping hand.  Similarly, the decision by Ms Reeves and her colleagues to prioritise butter over guns – awarding huge pay increases to the public sector, failing to tackle the welfare bill, and raising taxes on the working fraction of the population to fund this – comes at a cost. Growth is disincentivised, future revenue streams are diminished, and the Armed Forces do without.  As we are being reminded, such underinvestment has consequences. The UK evidently lacks the available forces to help secure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and Britain must continue to rely on the United States to ensure Ukraine can remain in its fight with Russia. We are learning, again, the painful lesson that there is no prosperity without security, and there is no security without the prosperity to pay for it.  Higher economic growth might not be a panacea for Britain’s ills, but it would do a great deal to alleviate the problems we find ourselves facing. If Ms Reeves and Mr Miliband truly wish to confront those responsible for the headaches facing the Government, they have no need to haul an unfortunate petrol retailer in for meetings. Finding the nearest mirror would suffice."
The cope is that this shows why you need even more disastrous left wing policies

Labour is coming after our pensions so it can keep on spending - "It is politically very difficult to tax the pension funds directly, especially given how people aged 60 and older are such an important voting bloc. But simply mandating investment in chosen projects or bonds that can be dressed up as helping the entire country is very simple... Spending that should come out of general taxation will be financed by dipping into pensions instead. The bank-robber Willie Sutton once observed that he raided banks “because that is where the money is”. Taxation this year will already reach a record high of 38pc of GDP, and it may well prove impossible to push it any higher.   State spending is getting close to 45pc of output and keeps on rising. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is close to 100pc, and with stagnant output will probably cross that psychologically important threshold this year. Given that this Government has no interest in controlling the juggernaut of state spending, and that its backbenchers would not tolerate it even if it did, pensions are clearly the last remaining target."

Labour is hellbent on destroying the private rental sector – but it’s social homes that are failing - "We’ve all seen the dramatic “nightmare landlord” stories that habitually make the headlines. And while it’s true that some members of my profession aren’t up to scratch, around 81pc of private renters are satisfied with their accommodation.  Rather than being tormented by the “nasty landlord” stereotype, most private tenants are happy with their lot – more, in fact, than social renters, according to the English Housing Survey.  While 75pc of social tenants reported being satisfied, this was despite the fact that their rents are typically half the cost of private renters. Seeing as private rents are often criticised for being too high – it’s one of the factors underpinning Labour’s misguided attempt to overhaul the system – you’d think those paying so much less would have more satisfaction with their accommodation. The ugly truth is some social tenants have to endure a severe lack of service. Read through any Housing Ombudsman report and your heart will break for the tenants who have had to live without functional kitchens, bathrooms, roof leaks, damp and mould, heating loss and a range of other problems for which any private landlord would, rightly, have the book thrown at them.  Social homes are more likely to be overcrowded, suffer from damp and mould during the winter and to overheat during the summer, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Government efforts to tax and legislate landlords out of existence will only put more pressure on the social housing sector, and while some on the Left uphold it as a panacea, the evidence of ailing councils failing to provide adequate accommodation suggests otherwise.  What’s more, the availability of social housing is actually worsening...   Of course, one of the best things to do when you’re failing as a government is to blame someone else.  Private landlords have taken the flack for this and many other failings over the years. It’s led to a stampede of landlords leaving the sector, not just because financially it’s too challenging to make the numbers stack, but mentally, it’s hard to go about the day job when you are judged to be akin to a criminal. Another inconvenient truth is the increase in the time and money landlords now spend managing their rentals.  Landlords with 11 or more properties spend an average of 78 hours per month doing some kind of property management, according to Pegasus Insight. Yet still HMRC appears to think this is not a trade, despite taking up almost half of the working month! The research also revealed that, despite the increases in rent charged by private landlords, profit margins were being further squeezed, with repairs and maintenance accounting for 31pc-39pc of landlord expenditure.  This is all before you factor in the extra income tax property owners will have to pay from April 2027 because, well, owning and renting a property out for income is easy, isn’t it? Putting all sarcasm aside, Labour must wake up and understand that managing properties is expensive and time-consuming – yet time and money are two things most social housing providers are lacking.  How, then, will they cope if private landlords continue to exit and would-be private tenants are forced to look to them for homes instead?  Up and down the country there are council properties lying empty because the fact is they have yet to understand the mechanics of the real world of property.  If anybody in politics actually wanted to make a proper job of fixing this housing crisis, they’d do well to ask a private landlord: just how do you survive the day-to-day?"

Activists arrested over ‘plans for mass shoplifting campaign’ - "Take Back Power has called for a citizen-led assembly that has the power to tax the rich... Last December, activists vandalised the case containing the Crown Jewels with fruit crumble and custard at the Tower of London on Saturday.  Members of Take Back Power staged the attack, filming their unfurling of a sign reading: “Democracy has crumbled – tax the rich”. Police arrested four people.  The same month, Left-wing activists emptied bags of horse manure under a Christmas tree at the Ritz hotel in London before being escorted away by security guards."

London council ‘illegally created six LTNs to make millions from motorists’ - "The ruling will prove embarrassing for those who have championed LTNs as a way to reduce traffic and pollution, as well as promote walking and cycling, after the judge described their benefits as being “relatively modest”... LTNs were introduced in the borough despite nitrogen dioxide pollution levels being “well within” UK targets, with a “slight” improvement on roads inside the LTN, but a “negligible increase in pollutants in neighbouring boundary roads on to which traffic had been displaced”.  Mr Perry was elected as the Tory mayor in May 2022 after campaigning to scrap the LTNs, but about-turned on that pledge the following year.  LTNs were created to improve several aspects of daily life. However, critics claim they simply shift traffic and its pollution onto already congested boundary roads, where poorer communities often live.  The council’s own report could not show whether the LTNs increased walking and cycling. Councils across the country have raked in millions of pounds a year in fines from the schemes, which were set up in the pandemic by the Conservative government in an attempt to make people fitter and healthier."

Unemployment now higher in UK than in Italy - "Unemployment is now higher in the UK than in Italy, according to official data that will reinforce worries that Britain is losing the labour market flexibility that has underpinned economic growth.  Italy’s jobless rate fell to 5.1 per cent in January, the country’s statistics office said on Wednesday, the lowest rate on record since 2004.  It reflects a long-running recovery that has brought Italian unemployment down from peaks above 12 per cent in the aftermath of the Eurozone debt crisis.  Meanwhile, UK unemployment rose to 5.2 per cent at the end of 2025, up from a 2022 low of 3.6 per cent to reach its highest level in a decade, outside the pandemic period. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts it will rise further in the short term. Youth unemployment in the UK has also risen to its highest level in a decade, outside Covid, with a jobless rate of 16.1 per cent for 16- to 24-year-olds that now outstrips the Eurozone average, although it remains below Italy’s youth unemployment rate of 18.9 per cent.  The figures will reinforce perceptions of a shift in the fortunes of major European economies, with countries in the southern periphery regaining momentum as “core” countries such as France, Germany and the UK lose some of their competitive edge... The UK has historically had lower levels of legal protection for workers but a higher employment rate than elsewhere in Europe. But many economists worry that recent policy choices are undermining jobs growth and making it more likely that the recent rise in unemployment will persist.  Bank of England rate-setters said this month that government decisions to raise minimum wage rates and payroll taxes had hit young people especially hard. The Tony Blair Institute said this week that the government needed to rethink policies on tax, immigration and workers’ rights to make it easier for companies to fire staff and people to take up better jobs. The OBR is so far assuming that the rise in UK unemployment is largely due to cyclical weakness in the economy, and that the job market will start to recover from 2027 onwards. But in its latest forecasts, it flagged the risk of a structural change in the labour market that could make higher unemployment a persistent feature of the UK economy."
Time for more regulation and to "tax the 'rich'"

Labour is damaging the economy, says Tony Blair - "Labour’s policies are harming growth and undermining young people’s job prospects, Sir Tony Blair has warned.  In his most damning intervention to date, the former prime minister’s think tank took aim at a raft of Labour’s flagship policies, criticising decisions to ramp up the minimum wage, National Insurance contributions and add more workers’ rights red tape.  The Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the think tank he runs, said Labour should reverse course on a raft of its flagship labour market policies as the economy struggles and unemployment surges."
Left wingers hate Blair, so they will double down on destroying the economy

The Old World Show on X - "This is what it has always meant. Just look at England in the 50s
The Earls Fitzwilliam spent generations building a prosperous coal mining industry in Northern England, and were beloved by the miners because they cared about safety, paid very well, provided schools and such for the kids, and otherwise were great employers in a way that essentially none of the oligarchic rather than aristocratic coal miners were. In so doing, and building up a stable and prosperous coal extraction industry that was worked by loving and loyal employees, they became immensely wealthy. That wealth was used to build Wentworth Woodhouse, one of the grandest and most gorgeous English country houses, and its beautiful parklands. That state of things lasted for over a century, with the Fitzwilliams and their workers having remarkably good relations even as labor agitation elsewhere was a disaster. Then, in the aftermath of WWII, Attlee's Labour regime was elected, and it nationalized pretty much all of British heavy industry, from the steel mills to the coal mines to the railroads. That meant the Fitzwilliam mines were expropriated from them. Yet worse, it meant a spiteful mutant named Manny Shinwell ordered the strip mining of all the coal on the estate, including through their beautiful and beloved parkland. The workers still loved the Fitzwilliams, and they revolted, and in a genuine outpouring of love and support, refused to follow Shinwell's orders and begged Attlee to reverse the decision. He didn't, the strike was broken, and the grounds were irreparably destroyed. So too was the house, which had its foundation destroyed by the open-cast mining, which went right up to the doorstep. Now it can't be lived in, and the Fitzwilliams had to give it up. The government of course refused to pay for the damage it has done. And what was gotten from all that destruction? Nothing. The coal mined from the Fitzwilliam parkland was essentially valueless, the stolen mines were largely shut down by the Thatcher years, and all the capital that could have funded Britain's post-war rebuilding was instead stolen and wasted on the welfare nanny state. Priceless forms of English heritage were destroyed, and noblesse oblige not just ignored but punished, all to fund the NHS for a few days"

Western Exile on X - "Absolutely nothing should radicalise the Briton of today more than the scale on which Britain's cultural heritage was destroyed in the 20th century. Consider that in 1955, one stately home - the bedrock of British rural life - was demolished every five days."
Alexander on X - "The house that used to sit where my old tennis club now is. The grounds were converted to a housing estate and a park. Also, one of the staircases is now displayed in the Moma in New York."
Western Exile on X - "Another such example would be Deepdene House in Surrey. In 1969 the Italianate masterpiece was demolished and replaced with a ghastly office block."
Will Tanner on X - "Immense amounts of priceless cultural heritage were destroyed in the name of equality, and now the British are equally poor and living in a backwater  It is important to remember that this vast destruction of Britain's cultural heritage didn't occur because the landowners suddenly got feckless and lost it all  It happened because of extortionate taxes that made it financially impossible for even the wealthiest to maintain these beautiful homes, and often the state just confiscated them in the name of the people, without compensation, as happened during and after WW2  The result of the tax regime was the destruction of a country home a day, and a great stately home a week, for over a decade"

What on earth does it mean to be Left-wing now? - "generally speaking, the more a group or its spokesperson refers to “the rich” with obvious distaste, the further to the Left it is.  Confusingly, however, they all say that the interests of “working people” are the sacred measure of political value, without ever defining precisely what that means. This is obviously intended to replace the old Labour shibboleth that the party represented the interests of working class people as opposed to the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy.  So “working people” is imprecise for a reason: it performs an important function by relinquishing the old militant associations and avoiding the rather patronising note of snobbery implicit in the word “class”. Now, anybody whose heart is in the right place (and who works for a living) can be a part of the Labour movement. Unless and until they earn too much money whereupon they become part of the hated “rich” – even if they have earned their wealth through honest endeavour and in the process created opportunities for other people to become more affluent and therefore not reliant on the state for assistance.  So the term “working people” perpetuates the problem rather than solving it. It preserves the distinction between those who work (probably very hard and at genuine risk) perhaps by creating their own businesses, and those who are employed by them. It is the latter group whom Labour notably seeks to protect from the possible predations of the former, through extended employment rights and increases in the minimum wage. Labour, in virtually all its guises, remains on the side of those who work for somebody else rather than embracing those who initiate new enterprises – and that is a sure fire recipe for undermining economic growth. If you want growth – which has been the endlessly reiterated goal of Sir Keir Starmer and his Chancellor – you must embrace the idea of creating new wealth wholeheartedly which means, as Blairite New Labour used to say, letting some people get “filthy rich”. If you want a free enterprise economy to succeed, and to bring the self-determination and social mobility which it can provide, you must not cast yourself as the enemy of entrepreneurialism, especially as the budding entrepreneur is as likely as not to be from what we used to call the “working class”.  Running through all this verbiage, there is a deep rooted contradiction which nobody from any of the factions seems prepared to address. Much of Labour’s policy – or lack of policy – is related to its attitudes to welfare spending. Supporting people who are not working, or helping to support those whose working income is too low to sustain them, seems to be the encumbrance which none of the party’s incarnations can confront. Even when the cost of this support is making it impossible for the state to spend money on improving the services which are important to its favoured “working people” – health, education, defence – the Left, even in its diluted modern form, cannot wind it down.  Paradoxically, this inability to reform welfare dependency is a major obstacle to reconciling Labour with what used to be its natural supporters. Working class people, whom Labour now call “working people”, are notoriously infuriated by those in their communities who live on welfare benefits. Unlike middle class sympathisers who manage to blame themselves for “social unfairness”, they are inclined to believe that the word “fair” means “you get out of life pretty much what you put in.” The Left’s position is obviously contradictory: if you revere working people and regard their interests as the sacred core of your political mission, then you should share in the resentment that they feel for those who choose not to work, or who calculatedly limit their earnings so as not to lose their in-work benefits.  What the welfare programme does, as most “working people” can see, is reward poverty and penalise those who begin to emerge from it by removing guaranteed state support from them. As Arthur Laffer put it: “If you pay people to be poor, you will get more and more poor people.” There are other perversities too in the Left’s message. In all its forms, but most stridently as it approaches the hard end of the spectrum, the Left urges the most extreme environmental measures. Ed Miliband, the hard-Left’s most plausible voice, is evangelical on this point. It seems not to occur to him that the voters whose cost of living would be most severely affected are precisely those “working people” whom he idealises. Telling them to sacrifice their precarious standard of living for the sake of future generations makes him sound more like an indulged aristocrat than a defender of the proletariat.  Add to this that many of his comrades on the “progressive” Left support Arab regimes which suppress women and murder homosexuals. What on earth does being Left-wing mean now, in any of its forms? There was a time when there was very little confusion about this. When the Soviet Union ran the show, its agents and fellow travellers knew precisely what line they were to take. If they deviated from it, they would quite possibly be killed. At least we’ve moved on from there."

Calls for wealth tax as Rich List shows £772bn in the hands of just 350 families : r/unitedkingdom - "Blanket 100% tax of inheratance of 1mill"
"I’d leave, to be blunt, because what’s in it for me?  Pay tax on company profits, good for me.  Pay tax on employing some very cool and talented people, good for me.’  Pay tax when I’ve saved up enough to buy somewhere to live, good for me.  Pay tax to educate my kids, not really cool because my Wife speaks a language I don’t and I think it’s important our children can speak to their relatives. But ok.  Pay tax on my salary, normal.  Pay tax pay tax pay tax.. ok, generally I think we need to contribute because we should care about we live and other people less fortunate who I live with.  Ahhh, now after all of the effort to make business profitable you’d like to arbitrarily tax me on what’s left?  Bye :)  £14m in salaries moved so far out of the U.K. in 2025 from our company, more importantly at our staff request. We are upstaffing in Canada heavily and opened new offices in Portugal and France which is where a lot of our staff have families.  Hiring in the US and Canada, Lisbon as well because they are incredibly well educated but don’t have many opportunities in country.  Your comment is.. interesting. I stayed because I was born here, all our international team will have left by the end of August. We can’t even prevent basic street crime or control rent or cost of living."
"ok, so where is the utopia with well funded healthcare, police, and schools where you would pay less taxes?"
"I have replied out of thread for some reason, but to answer your question, where would I go? Lausanne in Switzerland or Lisbon in Portugal or somewhere on the coast in the Basque Country in France close to the sea."
"Switzerland has a wealth tax, Portugal does not have good schools / healthcare / policing, and taxes in France are also higher"
"I’m Swiss, amongst other nationalities. I have a very clear understanding of Cantonal and Federal taxes and have an office in Zug. Your understanding of the Swiss tax regime isn’t one I’d recognise. Pictet will give you a quick update if you can spare the time.  Portugal/Lisbon has fantastic international schools, Policing contrary to what you say is good. We have family in both Customs and the Police force in Portugal so I’m just going to say you are wrong.  Healthcare in Switzerland is insurance based and excellent, healthcare in Portugal is a concern outside of Lisbon and Porto to be charitable.  Employers NI in France is 40%, but education is 1/3 of the cost of the U.K. for a top international school outside of Paris. Property is also significantly cheaper, healthcare is ok/significantly better than the U.K. We have family friends who are GP’s in Paris. They despair at the English healthcare system, it’s not great there but miles better than here. Property costs are significantly less including annual taxes.  We offered our Engineering teams in London relocation last year, 2/3’s of our staff are leaving and we are paying or have paid for their relocation. Most are going back to their countries of birth with their families. We also pay for middle and senior team’s health insurance and children’s education if requested.  Throw all the figures at me you’d like, I can give you a real world view.  There’s not really much in your reply that I’d consider and issue in real terms to be fair."

Private schools, pupils and their parents lose historic High Court bid to stop Labour introducing VAT on school fees : r/unitedkingdom - "Yes because private school IS a luxury product and you shouldn't be getting benefits from the rest of us to subside it. Having money to raise frivolous court cases just confirms this..."
"Private schools shouldn't be a thing. It should be based on geographical area and might then encourage those who can to fund state schools so they provide the education they want for their children."
"As Finland has shown when private schools are banned rich families will vote in their local communities to increase taxes to fund improvements to education so that their kids can go to good quality state schools."
"Finland also has entrance exams for schools, something that most people against private schooling in the UK seem to be against."
"Yes. All secondaries in Finland are the uk equivalent of grammar schools which you enter based on your grades and all universities have entrance exams."
Left wing logic: not paying VAT on school fees means the taxpayer is subsidising you
Finland doesn't ban private schools either. As usual, left wingers live in Lalaland
Naturally, people were complaining about school funding

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why | US-Israel war on Iran | Al Jazeera

"Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the dominant narrative has settled into a comfortable groove: The United States and Israel stumbled into a war without a plan. Iran is retaliating across the region. Oil prices are surging, and the world is facing another Middle Eastern quagmire. US senators have called it a blunder. Cable news has tallied the crises. Commentators have warned of a long war...

But this narrative is wrong. Not because the costs are imaginary, but because the critics are measuring the wrong things. They are cataloguing the price of the campaign while ignoring the strategic ledger.

When you look at what has actually happened to Iran’s principal instruments of power – its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, its air defences, its navy and its proxy command architecture – the picture is not one of US failure. It is one of systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades...

I have spent my academic career studying how states authorise the use of force through intelligence institutions, and what I see in the current campaign is a recognisable military operation proceeding through identifiable phases against an adversary whose capacity to project power is collapsing in real time.

Iranian ballistic missile launches have fallen by more than 90 percent from 350 on February 28 to roughly 25 by March 14, according to publicly available data. Drone launches tell the same story: from more than 800 on Day 1 to about 75 on Day 15.

The figures drawn from US and Iranian military statements differ in detail but converge on the trajectory. Hundreds of Iranian missile launchers have been rendered inoperable. According to some reports, 80 percent of Iran’s capacity to strike Israel has been eliminated.

Iran’s naval assets, fast-attack craft, midget submarines and mine-laying capabilities are being liquidated. Its air defences have been suppressed to the point at which the US is now flying nonstealth B-1 bombers over Iranian airspace, a decision that signals near-total confidence in air dominance.

The campaign has moved through two distinct phases. The first suppressed Iran’s air defences, decapitated its command and control, and degraded its missile and drone launch infrastructure. By March 2, US Central Command announced local air superiority over western Iran and Tehran, achieved without the confirmed loss of a single American or Israeli combat aircraft.

The second phase, now under way, targets Iran’s defence industrial base: missile production facilities, dual-use research centres and the underground complexes where remaining stockpiles are stored. This is not aimless bombing. It is a methodical campaign to ensure that what has been destroyed cannot be rebuilt.

Iran now faces a strategic dilemma that tightens every day. If it fires its remaining missiles, it exposes launchers that are promptly destroyed. If it conserves them, it forfeits the ability to impose costs of the war. Missile and drone launch data suggest Iran is rationing its remaining capacity for politically timed salvoes rather than sustaining operational tempo.

This is a force managing decline, not projecting strength.

Much of the criticism of the US-Israeli campaign focuses on its costs while treating the status quo ante as if it were cost-free. It was not.

Iran entered 2026 with 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity – enough, if further enriched, for as many as 10 nuclear weapons. Before the June strikes, Tehran was less than two weeks away from enriching enough uranium for one nuclear bomb, according to US intelligence assessments. At that time, the International Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged that Iran’s accumulation of near-weapons-grade material had no clear civilian justification.

The current campaign has damaged further the Natanz nuclear facility. The one in Fordow remains inoperable. The defence industrial facilities that would be needed to reconstitute enrichment capacity are being systematically targeted.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether diplomatic alternatives were fully exhausted, the Omani-mediated negotiations in February showed real progress, and there are legitimate questions about whether Washington walked away too soon.

But the critics’ implicit alternative, continued restraint while Iran inched towards a nuclear weapon, is the policy that produced the crisis in the first place. Every year of strategic patience added centrifuges to the enrichment halls and kilogrammes to the stockpile.

The limits of military force against a nuclear programme are real, and as others have argued elsewhere, strikes can destroy facilities but cannot eliminate knowledge. The 440kg of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for.

A successor regime of any political colour will inherit a strategic environment in which the case for nuclear deterrence has been strengthened, not weakened. These are genuine long-term risks. But they are arguments for a comprehensive post-conflict diplomatic architecture, not arguments against the campaign itself.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is dominating the critical commentary...

But this framing inverts the strategic logic. Closing the strait was always Iran’s most visible retaliatory card, and always a wasting asset. About 90 percent of Iran’s own oil exports pass through Kharg Island and then the strait.

China, Tehran’s largest remaining economic partner, cannot receive Iranian crude while the strait is shut. Every day the blockade continues, Iran severs its own economic lifeline and alienates the one major power that has consistently shielded it at the United Nations. The closure does not just hurt the global economy; it accelerates Iran’s isolation.

Meanwhile, the naval assets Iran needs to sustain the blockade – fast-attack boats, drones, mines, shore-based antiship missiles – are being degraded daily. Its naval bases at Bandar Abbas and Chahbahar have been severely damaged.

The question is not whether the strait reopens but when and whether Iran retains any naval capacity to contest it. Critics compare the challenge of escorting a hundred tankers daily to an impossible logistical burden. But you do not need to escort tankers through a strait if the adversary no longer has the means to threaten them. That is the operational trajectory.

The regional escalation – Hezbollah resuming attacks on Israel, Iraqi militias striking US bases, Houthis issuing threats in the Red Sea – is cited as the clearest evidence of US-Israeli strategic failure. The war is spreading, the critics say, just as it did in Iraq. This misreads the dynamics of Iran’s alliance network.

My research on how states authorise proxy violence identifies four layers of control: strategic legitimation, operational coordination, financial-logistical distribution and deniability calibration. The current campaign has disrupted all four simultaneously.

The assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei eliminated the apex of the authorisation pyramid. His son Mojtaba’s appointment as his successor, a dynastic transfer without precedent in the Islamic Republic, signals institutional fragility, not continuity. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command structure has been decapitated at multiple levels – the acting defence minister was among those killed.

When proxies launch retaliatory attacks across the region, this is not evidence of an expanding network; it is evidence of predelegated response authority, which is what a centralised command system activates when it anticipates its own destruction.

Predelegation is a sign of desperation, not strength. It means the centre can no longer coordinate. The attacks will continue, but they will become increasingly uncoordinated, strategically incoherent and politically costly for the host states where these groups operate.

Qatar and Bahrain are arresting IRGC operatives. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are intercepting Iranian drones over their own territory. The regional environment that sustained Iran’s proxy architecture, including the grudging tolerance by Gulf states fearful of Iranian retaliation, is being replaced by active hostility.

Hezbollah is weaker than at any point since 2006, degraded by more than a year of Israeli operations before this campaign began. Iraqi militias retain the ability to launch attacks, but they are doing so into a region where they face increasing isolation.

The Houthis in Yemen possess independent capability but lack the command integration with Tehran that transforms militia activity into strategic effect. What the critics described as an expanding regional war is better understood as the death spasm of a proxy architecture whose authorising centre has been shattered.

The most politically potent criticism is that the administration has no endgame. Trump’s own rhetoric has not helped...

But the endgame is visible in the operational phasing, even if the rhetoric obscures it. The objective is the permanent degradation of Iran’s ability to project power beyond its borders through missiles, nuclear latency and proxy networks.

Call it strategic disarmament. This is closer to the approach of the Allies to Germany’s industrial war-making capacity in 1944-1945 than to the US war on Iraq in 2003. The analogy is imperfect: Strategic disarmament without occupation requires a verification and enforcement architecture that no one has yet proposed, but the operational logic is the same.

No one is proposing to occupy Tehran. The question is what happens when the bombing stops, and here the critics raise a legitimate concern, which Murphy articulated concisely after a classified briefing: What prevents Iran from restarting production?

The answer requires a post-conflict framework that does not yet exist in public: a verification regime, a diplomatic settlement or a sustained enforcement posture. The administration owes the American public and its regional partners a clear account of what that framework would look like.

But the absence of a public diplomatic blueprint does not mean the military campaign is failing. It means the campaign is ahead of the diplomacy, a sequencing problem, not a strategic one. The military conditions for a durable settlement – Iranian missile capacity too degraded to rebuild quickly, nuclear infrastructure inaccessible, proxy networks fragmented – are being created right now.

None of this minimises the human costs...

But the critics are making a different error: They are treating the costs of action as if the costs of inaction were zero. They were not. They were measured in the slow accretion of a threat that, left unchecked, would have produced exactly the crisis everyone claims to fear: a nuclear-armed Iran capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz at will, surrounded by proxy forces that could hold the entire region hostage indefinitely.

Seventeen days in, Iran’s supreme leader is dead, his successor is reportedly wounded and every principal instrument of Iranian power projection – missiles, nuclear infrastructure, air defences, the navy, proxy command networks – has been degraded beyond near-term recovery. The campaign’s execution has been imperfect, its public communication poor and its post-conflict planning incomplete. War is never clean. But the strategy – the actual strategy, measured in degraded capabilities rather than cable news cycles – is working."

 

Iran supporters keep citing IAEA claiming there was no evidence Iran was trying to make a nuclear bomb, while ignoring their other observations