I wasn’t born until 1970, but remember being in the room playing on the floor while dad watched the news from a very early age. I remember often hearing about “Guerillas fighting” – which I imagined to be actual “Gorillas” – which I now suspect was my young childhood self hearing news from the Vietnam War.

— Jon Baker

😆

I had the exact same misapprehension as a little boy when I first heard the phrase ‘guerilla warfare’. I thought they were saying ‘gorilla’, and it made no sense to me.

I was a little kid during Watergate, and I thought they meant it literally, something to do with a dam.

I don’t see that Iran could be worse. It will likely be much better if the people who seem to want freedom and a secular society, gain control.

— Don

I can easily imagine worse than the mullahs. It’s one reason I’ve been cautious about this whole thing. I support Trump’s actions, but I don’t take success for granted, even now.

That said, we need to keep in mind that even a successful outcome will still probably look like a theocracy to our eyes, or at least have a strongly Islamic tone. No society can operate independently of its religious foundation for very long. Even in the West the hyper-secular worldview favored by the ruling class is faltering everywhere.

The new Iran may be freer and more civilized, but it will not be a Western style liberal democracy (though it may have elections, heck, they have elections of a sort now).

I don’t 100% believe this, but I do believe Trump has fantastic gut instinct for negotiations. Plus, I’m sure Bibi has pushed for a full regime change attack before, and claimed Israel was ready & willing at any time to join the US.

It’s the leader who wins the most, & Trump wants to BE the leader who wins the most. Trump looks better if it was his decision, and his words are now claiming credit.

Trump haters will keep saying he’s a puppet, but he’s not.

Trump has also said the next wave of leaders has been killed—another on X says that the 88 Elders, who can select the next leader, were meeting to do so. And they were bombed, all dead. Maybe nobody alive is authorized to name the new leader.

Trump joked about killing that third wave, which might not even happen, so many Iranians are calling and asking to surrender so as to get immunity.

What wild 2026!

https://www.youtube.com/live/eaB-GNL-dso?si=eNa_wnk21ls0L0l5

Iran Was Counting on the West’s Cravenness
https://archive.fo/3fph3

The current campaign against Iran represents the convergence of two wars—the long, slow war the Islamic Republic has waged since its inception in 1979 against the U.S., and the more intense and gruesome war Tehran’s proxies launched against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Someone here may have already come up with this – if so, sorry, there’s been a lot to read – but I have been asking myself if this all would be happening if Oct 7 hadn’t.

looking at the big picture, the Shah was probably not nearly as brutal as Hassan of Morocco and his ‘Years of Lead’ campaign in the 60s and 70s, against the likes of Ben Barka, and even General Oufkir, and the Alouyites have endured to this day,

More like the last Czar, as Iran has echoed their northern neighbor, he was perhaps less ruthless than he should have been,

the initiol revolt resembles the Juhayman Grand Mosque siege, that French Paras settled,in the aftermath of in the birthpangs of this revolt

the land reform plan, and the immunity agreement for US forces, seem to have been the main sources of support for Khomeini