I just wrote my first Substack. Daunting. My only subscribers are my kids and my mum so make my day and subscribe if any of it sounds vaguely interesting. 1. Lift-off open.substack.com/pub/claire…

It is painful when people pull a datapoint out of context then set up a correlation > causation strawman that doesn’t survive the first line of replies. You only need 1 idiot to mention “benefits / immigrants” & that jumps to the top & all nuance is lost👇

يُعتبر هذا المشهد واحد من أكثر الجرائم رُعباً في كل تاريخ الحروب لحظة قيام جندي إسرائيلي بقنص سيدة مُسنة في غزة وهي تُمسك بيد حفيدها رافعين الراية البيضاء وبعد أن قام جيش الاحتلال بإعطائهم الأمان للمرور النسيان جريمة.

This is pretty incredible (Dounana by Siba)

I think you’ll find its now called “the strait of Iran”?

最高😆 声出してワロタ しかもこれが欧米でも大受けらしい

Insane

One family, the right-wing Trump-aligned Ellisons, will soon control: TikTok CBS CNN HBO Discovery Channel BET Cartoon Network Comedy Central DC Studios Fandango Miramax MTV Nickelodeon Paramount PlutoTV Showtime TBS The CW TNT Warner Bros. And more This is oligarchy.

Mead understands the trap he’s in now. How can you walk without defeating the Iranian blockade of the gulf? It would undermine US military prestige. So there is great pressure to finish the job. The issue is that finishing the job will take so long that it would take down the world economy, this presidency, and the GOP with it.

IRAN’S SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL AND WAR TERMINATION IN 2026 Is this unfair to world powers? What, precisely, is the responsibility of the other powers, great and small, to US-Israeli aggression and their joint proposal for unchallenged Israeli military primacy in the Middle East? In a functioning great power system, the great powers would immediately convene and sort out a deal to restore peace and the survival of the fossil economy that feeds the whole planet. Any such deal would include a formula — explicit or implicit, but regardless reflected in the military postures and response functions of the powers that jointly underwrite the international order — for the security of the state that has been attacked; justly or unjustly, both would be of great interest to the powers. Any serious statesman or diplomatist of the more civilized system of the European great powers, jus publicum europaeum, would tell you that unless the security of the state under attack can be guaranteed, that state can hardly be asked to submit to the international system — for otherwise, the alleged outlaw state is justus hostis for the international system tout court. When I say the Iranians are not going to listen to China or Russia short of substantial military support, I want to suggest that the Iranians are not listening to anything other than solutions to their problem of survival. The problem of war termination will not be solved until the international community provides a formula for Iranian survival that passes the laugh test. Were China or Russia to airlift weapons and promise to rearm Iran with missiles and drones, that would persuade the Iranians to cease fire in my judgement. Short of that what can they offer? It’s not like the Iranians have no plan to win the war. They are going to make Trump pay such a high price that future presidents, himself included, will think twice about considering the idea ever again. They know what they need to do to impose intolerable costs on Trump and the international community. They just need to keep Hormuz closed and sustain their attacks for long enough to politically cripple Trump. According to my calculations, Iran will be able to sustain fire and keep Hormuz closed for many months, if indeed not years. One day of oil above $100 and he resorted to panicked market diplomacy. This leads me to the thesis that while he may have high risk appetite, he does not have high pain tolerance. But we are playing Mercy here. The problem of Iranian security has been triggered by the joint Israeli-American proposal for a Middle East ruled by Israel. Iran’s security problem in the context of war termination, is to deter a future US-Israeli attack. Iran is all ears for solutions to this problem. But there is no one in the international system who has stepped up to solve this problem. Unless this problem is effectively addressed by the international system, I don’t see how Iran can be prevented from crashing the world economy.

Could not agree more with this. We need 2-3 trade currencies. Nested layers. Balanced trade & capital flows. No more surplus consumption. No more world policeman. Balanced blocs with interoperable infrastructure. Modular, not this crazy global superorganism:

I was in Tehran in May 2025 and was surprised by what Iran looks like, after being indoctrinated with anti-Iranian propaganda over the decades (this was not recorded by me; I think it was Max Blumenthal) - US/Israeli bombing and mass murder are not the path to social reform.

RT @mehdirhasan: Lebanese die, Israelis are killed

.@trussliz. I am glad to see your noted voice, as usual laden with inexperience, ignorance and poor instincts, in the Trump Chorus. It may persuade intelligent people to take the other view .

Just looked into ordering 500 litres of domestic heating oil (as we do every couple of months or so), and the price has risen from £326.29 (which we paid at the end of December) to £703.54 today. British politicians supporting this war are playing a very dangerous game.

👀 🤔

What Villepin saying is blindingly true; it is amazing that people have become so used to double standards that they find it radical. The wars of aggression are a violation of UN's most fundamental rule. George W Bush and Blair et al. should have been indicted. Obviously, the current leaders should be too. For Netanyahu it would be the second time. He can become the veteran of war crimes & genocides.

Even the drains are on fire in Tehran following attacks on its fuel depots. The US has unleashed an ecological disaster that will produce cancer and other diseases for decades. Yet, our shameless political-media establishment continue to sell the war as a humanitarian project

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi: Our enemies are not each other — they are war, poverty, hunger, and injustice.

I supported President Trump for many years, but this is as mad as Caligula and as murderous as Nero.