Iran

Curious opinion piece by an academic, from Exeter College in Devon England, published in Al Jazeera. Muhanad Seloom sees the slap back on Iran as good, containing their reach back to their own borders. His spin about everything puts it in the right column, but he ignored the life lost, the ecological damage. I don't know how he imagines the son being installed means it's automatically being weakened. Might be strengthened to change, and get younger. The son was put in charge, do you really know that much about him? Well, he might. I think he might, no wikipedia page to list where Seloom was born, I wonder. Is he fundamentally against Iran as being an Iraqi? He disclosed he lived 4 years in Iraq. He speaks Kurdish, is he a Kurd minority from Iran who doesn't like the power? It's interesting, I can't find out where he's born.

I think he underestimates the strategic patience the regime has, it's willingness to let their people suffer. They routinely slaughter many. 

Seloom seems to think reducing their missile stockpile and firing capacity and whatnot is worth it. 

Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg in the Atlantic (Archive) think, "not only at degrading military capability but also at creating conditions for political change."

"The early results are promising, though much remains unfinished." They reference the 12 day war with Israel last year. That they can fly planes over Iran unthreatened, for the most part. 

The Atlantic has the same logic as Seloom: "The announced selection of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader may accelerate that erosion rather than stabilize it. A polished cleric in the mold of Hassan Rouhani could again provide the IRGC political cover and revive illusions of moderation abroad. Mojtaba offers no such illusion. His elevation signals a harsher, weaker, more corrupt order—and therefore a more fragile one."

I can't help but think they're amplifying administration points, and they're tacitly passing on a positive view of a corrupt and troubled administration in the USA. The military must see themselves as separate from ICE murders of US citizens in cold blood. They have a more Hobbesian view of life, brutish and short. Today is a good day to die. They only put forward positive details: "The movement of the USS Gerald R. Ford strike group down the Red Sea suggests that naval capacity is being positioned for the next phase." 

My Iranian friend was telling me to visit the island there in the Red Sea, as way of coming to Iran that doesn't threaten the regime. They would think that because I'm from America, I was a spy. I do want to learn about iranian literature, theater, poetry, music, food, rituals, customs and culture.

Friend in Iran has his communications blocked by Iran, which shuts down the access to the internet on the slightest provocation, and cutting off the internet is one of many fundamentalist punishments, infinitely better than murdering all the youths protesting.

We meditated most days together, and talk the Dharma when the internet is not cut off. He learned English listening to Buddhists talking on YouTube. I think he could tell the war was coming, he felt the tension. I'm personally letting this whole thing upset me more than I want it to, and writing about it is a little bit of a way of mastering it. He doesn't live near Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, and the city he lives in, he lives just out of town. I would never know if there was some secret facility that USA would target, like a school for little girls.