Operation Epic Fuck Up
First World Problems
I’m in a car, late as usual but on my way to work. The driver has 94.5 WPST-FM on, and the “morning crew” is inviting call-in comments on their deep discussion topic du jour: how long should you wait to complain at a restaurant before you regard your “server” as late in bringing your order? “Fifteen minutes.” “Twenty minutes.” One guy says he avoids the problem by telling everyone he’s in a hurry, whether or not he is. Ha ha! Funny! Happy Friday, everyone!
Is it wrong to have contempt for this sort of escapism? Were Germans this insouciant and delusional two weeks into the invasion of Poland? Historians (Kershaw, Evans) typically describe German public opinion as tense but approving of the invasion. But was it as out of touch with reality—as detached, dissociated, and lacking in any sense of normative priorities—as this?
Defeat Will Do
Twelve days into the war with Iran, The New York Times is gradually coming to acknowledge that the war has not been a one-way affair. For twelve days, the Times has covered the war as though the US and Israel have had free rein to attack Iran, but as though Iran itself had been a passive recipient of the shock and awe campaign inflicted on it. Now all of a sudden, we get four major articles within 24 hours telling us otherwise:
- “How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran’s Response to the War”;
- “At Least 17 US Sites Damaged in War with Iran, Analysis Shows”;
- “Iranian Military Shows It Knows How to Adapt, US Officials Say”;
- “At least 3 ships are struck in and around the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran claims responsibility for one”;
Better late than never, but still pretty late to be telling your audience that the other side had not only managed to retaliate over the last two weeks, but had inflicted a fair bit of unexpected damage, and promises more. Continue reading
Institutional Neutrality and Legislative Oversight
Suppose that I’m a university president at an institution that’s endorsed institutional neutrality. I’m now invited by the chair of an oversight committee in Congress or the state legislature to testify before the committee on matters that fall within the committee’s higher education oversight functions. Stipulate that the discussion of these matters can’t avoid touching on matters of public controversy, and that I won’t be permitted during the oversight hearing to pick and choose what questions I’ll answer or in what form. Those issues are exclusively within the purview of the committee chair. What should I do? Continue reading
Target Practice
If you’ve been following the news about the Iranian girls’ school that was hit by an American missile, you may have noticed that the very news stories that indict the US quietly provide a bit of exoneration for the US as well. The school, we’re told, was right next to a military installation. Clearly (the story goes), the installation was the intended target of the strike. If so, perhaps there is a story to be told about how the US was trying to hit the military installation but accidentally hit the school (twice). Which doesn’t make it so bad. It was an accident! Not our fault! Why would the Revolutionary Guards put a military installation next to a school? How can we be blamed for killing a bunch of schoolgirls if they do? You can see the position of the school relative to the base in this screen shot below from The New York Times. Continue reading
Anatole Lieven on “The Woke Left”
Consider a lapse (or two) into senselessness in a generally sensible piece by a generally sensible author, Anatole Lieven. The thesis:
By their shameful, spineless stance on the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, European leaders have doomed whatever remained of their global influence and their pretensions to promote a “rules-based international order.”
They are also helping to dig the graves of their own political parties, and quite possibly of European democracy.
Fair enough. Now for the first lapse: Continue reading
Malley and Wertheim on Iranian “Responsibility”
When people commit crimes, they often invent elaborate rationalizations to conceal or dilute the moral turpitude of the offense. Rapists notoriously claim that their victims asked to be raped, or enjoyed it during the act. Murderers cite the imperatives of retributive justice. Etc. When it comes to ordinary crimes, most people can see the gaslighting involved for the deception it is. Unfortunately, this tends not to be true of crimes by nation-states. A nation-state can commit an obvious, egregious crime in the plain light of day, lie about it in an obvious way, and be believed by millions of people. Continue reading
Persian Gulf Studies in Insouciance, vol. 1:1
A WhatsApp message from a cousin of mine who lives and works in the United Arab Emirates:
Am fine. Worked from home for a few days, then went back to the office today. Things are relatively normal, despite the missiles and drones.
He’s an emergency room physician. Curious how long the normality lasts.
“The Iran War Is Unfathomably Depraved”
Notes on War and Complicity
There are many valuable criticisms and critiques of the Iran War out there, and at some point I hope to mention as many of them here as I can, but if you want one-stop shopping, the thing to read is Nathan Robinson’s “The Iran War Is Unfathomably Depraved” in the March 2026 issue of Current Affairs. I agree with literally everything in Robinson’s article except this one sentence:
We are all complicit.
No, we’re not. Continue reading
The Fog of War
An Israeli security analyst on the supposed virtues of Israeli military strategy:
When you are the one initiating–not the one caught off guard–you can fight a war on two fronts more effectively,” said Sarit Zehavi, an Israeli analyst who studied Hezbollah for over 20 years, first as an Israeli intelligence officer, then as the head of Alma, an Israeli defense think tank focusing on Syria and Lebanon (“Israel’s plans in Lebanon, prepared well in advance, include the option of a deeper incursion, officials say,” The New York Times, March 3, 2026).
Something equally obvious: when “you are the one initiating,” you’re the one engaged in aggression, and you’re the one who forfeits any right of self-defense. So the advantage you gain in strategy is one you lose in morality, which translates to a loss of sympathy in a lot of people, including the ones you call “allies.” Continue reading
Policy of Truth 