Tag Archives: iran

Loyalty and Academic Freedom

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

The case of Jonathan A. C. Brown
A friend is circulating an Open Letter to Interim President Robert Groves of Georgetown University in defense of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilisation in the School of Foreign Service. Apparently, during the recent US-Israel-Iran war, Brown made this comment on X:

“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops,” Brown wrote on X.

Brown has tenure and a chaired professorship at Georgetown, but apparently the comment was regarded as frightening enough to call for his suspension. The President forced Brown to delete the tweet, and he’s now been suspended. He’s also been removed as chair of his department, which I believe was intended as punishment. Continue reading →

Davenport et al on Regime Change in Iran

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran

PoT’s own John Davenport has a piece in The Defense Post attacking the idea of regime change in Iran. John argues, reasonably enough, that a war with Iran is ill-conceived, partly because it’s based on Israeli deceptions, and partly because it’s likely to lead to terrible, even catastrophic consequences. Continue reading →

Against War with Iran

Posted on by under Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2, War with Iran

People like to say that Near East politics is complex, but the war on Iran is blindingly simple. Aggression is immoral, as is participation in it. Israel’s war on Iran is a blatantly obvious, incontestable act of aggression, as is US participation in the war so far, along with any further participation. No one has bothered to provide even a semi-plausible justification for this war, no one can, and no one will. The whole thing is insane.

Continue reading →

Israel’s War with Iran

Posted on by under War with Iran

Between January and March of 2020, I wrote a 24-part series condemning the idea of war with Iran. I then reluctantly added a 25th part last April. I’m not going to repeat any part of that performance now. If you want to read it, click the “War with Iran” tag. Suffice it to say that I knew this day was coming, did my inept share of tilting at windmills about it, and now it’s here.

Continue reading →

Hegseth and the Houthis

Posted on by under Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2

As usual in American politics, everyone’s talking the Hegseth and the Houthis story to death, but almost no one’s focused on the right part of it. The story, of course, is that Hegseth and Co had planned to bomb Yemen, and did. They discussed their war plans on the Signal app, but accidentally put Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, on the chat. That was a gigantic breach of protocol, but Hegseth et al didn’t notice Goldberg’s presence. A big national controversy has now arisen about what to do. Investigate Hegseth? Force him to resign? Prosecute him? Continue reading →

War with Iran (16): The Headaches of War

Posted on by under War with Iran

In episode 13 of this series–and “episode” is the only word for a war that resembles a reality TV show–I pointed out that the Trump Administration misstated the number of casualties suffered by American troops in the recent Iranian attack on Iraqi military bases where those troops are stationed. Trump had originally said there were no casualties, but at that point, it was reported that 11 soldiers had been evacuated for injuries suffered in the attacks. But it gets better. Now the number evacuated is starting to rise. From 11, it’s become “about a dozen.” One report puts the number in the “teens.” So what’s the explanation for the discrepancy–that the Pentagon is hiding the truth from us, or that it can’t count? Continue reading →

War with Iran (15): From the Annals of American Military Invincibility

Posted on by under War with Iran

So this isn’t a story specifically about Iran, but close enough:

WASHINGTON — Armed with rifles and explosives, about a dozen Shabab fighters destroyed an American surveillance plane as it was taking off and ignited an hours long gunfight earlier this month on a sprawling military base in Kenya that houses United States troops. By the time the Shabab were done, portions of the airfield were burning and three Americans were dead.

Surprised by the attack, American commandos took around an hour to respond. Many of the local Kenyan forces, assigned to defend the base, hid in the grass while other American troops and support staff were corralled into tents, with little protection, to wait out the battle. It would require hours to evacuate one of the wounded to a military hospital in Djibouti, roughly 1,500 miles away.

The brazen assault at Manda Bay, a sleepy seaside base near the Somali border, on Jan. 5, was largely overshadowed by the crisis with Iran after the killing of that country’s most important general two days earlier, and is only now drawing closer scrutiny from Congress and Pentagon officials.

What scrutiny? Continue reading →