“The truth is that America had its own Ahmadinejad from the start. Trump is a projection of our base desires, an amplification of the worst parts of ourselves.”

“For all of their shared qualities, one crucial difference sets Trump apart from Ahmadinejad [whose] noxious bellowing remained aspirational, penned in by Iran’s relative weakness and corralled by the authority of the more cautious Khamanei…No such boundaries exist for Trump.”

Ferdowsi Street and Square, the very center of Tehran, blocks away from my Aunt's home and a space I've circled countless times. The lady describes a "double-tap," first, a strike and after people came to help, another strike. “They killed the children…the young, the young…”

A rushed paraphrasing by me of the passage displayed here. The wolves = the clerics, the lion = the United States. I'm also playing on the fact that the IRI routinely uses wolves to depict the US in the school textbooks (what I study).

It is sickening to think about what might happen next. Thinking of the people in the path of this folly, and of the people of Ukraine, who could have really used those munitions in year 5 of their brave resistance to Russian aggression. 9/9

In class this week, we discussed US foreign policy tools. The US has used most of them in Iran over the years: covert regime change (1953), endless sanctions through the UN, SWIFT, etc, diplomacy (JCPOA), targeted strikes, and now a military campaign for regime change. This is the riskiest. 6/

It is really not clear how long the U.S. can keep this up, the munitions really are limited (cc @proftalmadge.bsky.social), the Ford really is at the limit of its deployment, yet the maximal aims mean there's no clear endpoint. The U.S. has vast military power but real limits. 4/

In addition to consequences for Iran/region (huge), what does this mean for US in aftermath? Incomplete list of concerns includes (1) why negotiate with us ever (2) depleted munitions stocks, readiness, yet ongoing threats to Cuba, etc... 3/

But Golestan Palace is most famed for its mirrored tilework. In the Safavid era, mirrors imported from Europe often arrived in shards. Rather than discarding broken mirrors, Iran's crafstmen developed this unique architectural element. Much of it now appears damaged.

You don't say?

Authoritarian regimes are often undermined by low human capital among the people willing to work for them

Double tapping, an Israeli trademark, the height of their civilization

We lost 3 F-15s today. www.cnn.com/2026/03/02/m...

Important historical context for Khamanei’s rise to power

Ferdowsi Street and Square, the very center of Tehran, blocks away from my Aunt's home and a space I've circled countless times. The lady describes a "double-tap," first, a strike and after people came to help, another strike. “They killed the children…the young, the young…”

“If the plan was to rely on Trump, Netanyahu & Pahlavi, Malekzadeh saw it as a symptom of people’s desperation, not hope. ‘This is the nadir, the pit of despair.' he said. 'They’re thinking, better to be devoured by a beautiful lion than to be torn apart by a horde of foul wolves.’” @theguardian.com

Motahari Street, Tehran, #Iran.

More of this! Corruption is poison for elected officials!

NEW: "No to the Islamic republic, no to Israel and no to the United States" — many Iranians are weighing contradictory truths as war hits their country. @negarmortazavi.bsky.social and @arashtehran.bsky.social join @faisalalyafai.bsky.social on The Lede. newlinesmag.com/podcast/in-t...

During the 12 day war, the death toll in Iran was around 1000. In only 48 hours, over 500 Iranians have been killed. At least 165 of those were school children and others at a school murdered in one strike x.com/lcmporter/st...

I saw this and at first thought "no, there's no way 'we definitely had alternative leadership in mind for Iran but I blew them up alongside the schoolgirls using AI' is what the White House is actually saying, that's too clueless and evil to be real"

“Turns out you can just kill bad people and everything is fine” - Gavrilo Princip

Deaths arising from wars of choice, like acts of god, school shootings, and tornadoes, are appropriately filed under “sh*t happens” because they are all, of course, devoid of human agency

This essay from @swarthy-bastard.bsky.social is well worth a read: "We live our lives as Iranians and Americans between existing and emerging autocracies, unrepentant regimes devoted to violence at home and abroad" prospect.org/2026/02/24/i...

Ossoff’s statement is 1000x stronger than Schumer-Jeffries. This is a moderate Jewish Senator from a Trump state. The split isn’t moderate vs progressive, but leading vs poll-reacting

The number of dead kids in the Israeli bombing of a girl’s school in Minab, southern Iran, has now reached 148. Don’t let them sell you dead children as “collateral damage of a just war”. The death of Khamenei does not justify 148 dead children.

Bombing near the Bazaar of Tehran. This is the historic center of Tehran, and old buildings like the Qajar palace complex and the Jameh Mosque (late 18th C) are there. Plus the bazaar itself (also where my family are originally from!)

“If the plan was to rely on Trump, Netanyahu & Pahlavi, Malekzadeh saw it as a symptom of people’s desperation, not hope. ‘This is the nadir, the pit of despair.' he said. 'They’re thinking, better to be devoured by a beautiful lion than to be torn apart by a horde of foul wolves.’” @theguardian.com

Important historical context for Khamanei’s rise to power

“The truth is that America had its own Ahmadinejad from the start. Trump is a projection of our base desires, an amplification of the worst parts of ourselves.”

“For all of their shared qualities, one crucial difference sets Trump apart from Ahmadinejad [whose] noxious bellowing remained aspirational, penned in by Iran’s relative weakness and corralled by the authority of the more cautious Khamanei…No such boundaries exist for Trump.”

Peas in a pod, minus one difference: “It took a disputed election to put Ahmadinejad back into office. Come July when the GOP gathers in Cleveland, Ohio to pick its nominee for the general election, only a rigged convention can keep Trump off the ticket.”

It says everything about Iran coverage that this man, who was once the central obsession of American journalists as some sort of existential threat to The American Way, is now almost entirely forgotten.

Many #Iran observers have warned about this for decades. The Islamic Republic’s durability has never been the sole function of Khamenei’s personal rule. It has always rested on the institutional architecture that the regime built around him. 1/2

A terrific step-by-step account of the Office of the Supreme Leader's sources of power and likely secession plans, by Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh Rahimkhani. "The Office of the Supreme Leader: Epicenter of a Theocracy" (2016). Book cover by yours truly. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qn5bu...

This one is for the Iranians on my feed, the keyboard warriors too lazy or too scared to go back home and struggle in person. This is what everyone cheering for airstrikes helped to create. This is what they mean by “freeing Iran.”

PUBLICATION DAY! Today my book has officially been re-released by @pennpress.bsky.social. With new preface that examines the 2020 protest that led to the removal of the Rizzo statue, recent Philly politics, and the rise of Trump, I hope you'll check it out and help spread the word! 🗃️

This is what happens if Khamanei was killed - the system is resilient, the subject of his successor has been hotly debated for a while (he’s 86!), other officials were already exercising authority over the situation. I would think this is not much of an operational or political hiccup frankly

👇🏽

Real ones know

📌It is absolutely insane that two old power-hungry, greedy, lawless men are in the process of killing countless hundreds and thousands of innocent human beings, and destabilizing a world they won't be living in a decade from now, and not EVERYBODY is speaking out loudly against this.

This gets at the heart of the piece. Thank you @andisheh.com for re-sharing 🙏🏽

One of the burdens of working on Iran is making the same pleas over and over again, to no avail.

“In seeking new beginnings, immigrants bring much to the United States in return, not least of all the knowledge of how things end. We know that foreign adventures are a predicate for the consolidation of power at home.” @swarthy-bastard.bsky.social prospect.org/2026/02/24/i...

This one is for the Iranians on my feed, the keyboard warriors too lazy or too scared to go back home and struggle in person. This is what everyone cheering for airstrikes helped to create. This is what they mean by “freeing Iran.”

The cries of anguish. Jesus Christ.

My latest take on the looming war, and what we can learn from each other as Americans and Iranians: “We live our lives as Iranians and Americans between existing and emerging autocracies, unrepentant regimes devoted to violence at home and abroad.”

Just want to note that 3am in Washington is like 11:30am in Tehran. The American people are the ones he snuck up on in the dead of night to conduct this illegal attack, not the purported enemy.