A pleasure to review such an outstanding book!

And as many of us posted before the reprieve, the maybe-deal doesn’t change the fundamentals of the conflict. So it is either accepting the losses, which might get bigger given Iranian leverage and demands, or back to war in 2 weeks.

CNN reporting that Iran launched attacks on Israel and the UAE during or immediately after Trump’s address.

In all seriousness... what did that achieve? what was the point of putting the president on TV, if he had nothing new to say? "Suck it up, it hasn't taken as long as Vietnam" is not as heartening as the White House seems to think.

there's no making sense of that. it was pure flailing. there is no strategy. there is no endgame. he has no idea how to get out of what he's done.

this is just like his war plan ... without purpose, incoherent, and possibly never-ending...

With reported shortages of interceptors and more US troops moving into the region…

Every time he says this re-indicts his cabinet of fools and the incompetence of his purged bureaucracy

My latest on the Iranian threat to the Strait of Hormuz in @foreignaffairs.com www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/hormuz-...

"Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes." www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/p...

Well, there it is. Mines laid by small boats.

Turns out Grok didn't include a lot of stuff in the war plans that it drafted for Hegseth and Rubio.

This is going to be politically toxic to the US-ROK alliance under a progressive administration in Seoul: South Korea took the brunt of PRC sanctions for this deployment back in 2016-2017, only to have assets relocated for a war of choice in the Middle East that threatens its energy security.

This is a technical story with stunning strategic implications. It is quite possible the US launched a massive war because Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff lacked the technical expertise to even understand what the Iranians were offering in negotiations. Absolute idiocy. www.ms.now/news/trump-i...

I know our expectations for this administration are in the basement but it is INSANE they started a war without a plan for the Strait of Hormuz.

NEW piece from me @goodauth.bsky.social on the disastrous consequences of Trump and Rubio dismantling U.S. diplomacy. Managing the Iran War will be much harder; so will picking up the pieces. Diplomacy is a tool of war AND of peace. (Loosely based on thread below.) goodauthority.org/news/trump-a...

The Trump administration put out a $20 billion plan to insure tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. It promised US Navy escorts for civilian ships trying to pass through. It assured us any Iranian threat was all-but-over. The market's reaction, so far, to these measures:

Definitive summary from @profsaunders.bsky.social of the infuriating and tragic destruction of America’s global role & powers by the Trump Admin, and its impact on the world in this terribly fraught time. 👇

Raising the costs that Iran is willing to incur and cutting off your only hope to be able to claim some sort of victory short of occupying the country … genius!

🧵Cans of Worms possibly opened by Trump's war of choice in Iran, a running list: (not exhaustive, with the caveat that I am not an expert on the region so these are questions from a US foreign policy perspective, please add others) 1/?

This should end well.

May I humbly suggest we dial back the hyper-fixation on how long the administration says war will last. No one ever knows because war is unpredictable & adversary gets a vote. Where the administration should be hammered is on the incoherent explanation of why they started the war in the first place.

Keep hearing commentators/Hegseth saying a version of "this is not Iraq, we are not doing nation-building, it's a decapitation, the people will handle it." That's what Iraq 2003 was supposed to be! Nation-building, de-Baathification, disbanding of Iraqi army, it all came *after* things went wrong.

Quick reactions after learning that no, nobody could stop him. 1/ goodauthority.org/news/trump-m... 1/

So he's definitely going to bomb Iran. (Not even really kidding)

This. Constraint and accountability for using military force start closest to home. Advisers and members of the president’s party. Doesn’t have to be a vote, doesn’t have to be public. But there’s no constraining without it. War is an Insiders’ Game.

NATO allies setting up a trip wire to deter the US from invading Greenland. www.newsweek.com/greenland-ge...

The past week has shown us something scary — the concrete and specific outlines of a durable authoritarian state in America. Here's what this state would look like, and the precise policy levers Trump is pulling to get there from here. www.vox.com/politics/462...

This emergency food aid, enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week, will be incinerated tomorrow rather than distributed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another in a long list of Trump's crimes against humanity.

Still my biggest question aside from Iranian retaliation. What is the diplomatic plan?

Trump is once against arsonist and fireman. If he hadn't pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal (which our own State Dept. certified Iran was in compliance with), we wouldn't be here.

🧵 To make this more concrete: don't assume Trump himself knows what he is going to do next in in the Israel-Iran conflict. He definitely doesn't want to get the US involved in a major war in the Middle East (that much he's been clear on). But he loves to bomb and look tough. 1/

"The American regime today arrested a member of the legislative opposition, after declaring it would 'liberate' that senator's province from opposition control using the armed forces"

Literally describing themselves as occupying a blue state like hostile territory with the military and federal forces.

“The actions have obliterated decades of experience in national security and criminal matters at the F.B.I. and raised questions about whether the agents taking over such critical posts have the institutional knowledge to pursue cornerstones of its work. Image” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/u...

This may end up being onw of the biggest self-owns ever www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/w...

Secretary of Transportation says you should be scared of public transportation. Four million people will ignore him, justifiably, and ride the NY subway tomorrow. 🤡

Is clownsmanship a word? If not, can we make it one?

This is blatantly authoritarian. No specific and credible allegations are laid against Krebs, beyond the fact he undermined the President's false claims about a stolen election. Nevertheless, Trump will direct the federal government to make his life hell. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

Rock band REM releasing a remix of its first single, “Radio Free Europe,” to raise money for RFE/RL after the Trump administration froze its funding. www.instagram.com/reel/DJJluTO...

We should thank [our] lucky stars that Trump chose to do this in the most stupid way possible,” says Lucan Way, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who studies democratic backsliding.

Literally straight out of the authoritarian playbook. And no one should be calling it a "news distortion review" uncritically in a headline - that is Orwellian doublespeak

It’s only getting much play in the trade/transport niche press. But pretty real product shortages beginning in mid-May or so are already locked in. They’re maybe a thousand miles out in the Pacific Ocean. Modern trade takes place in gargantuan container ships. There are very detailed records …

Basis in Reality (descending order): 1. Horoscopes 2. Army Detachment Steiner 3. Easter Bunny 🐰 4. This

Trump's executive order directing DOJ to investigate ActBlue makes clear we no longer a fully democratic country - my comments to the Associated Press apnews.com/article/wisc...

This is the kind of leader-worship bs I associate with the USSR in the 80s. Absolutely unbelievable that’s where the US is now.