[Just The News] Intellectual nonsense from elite women is surprisingly commonplace and continues unabated. One need look no further than Meryl Streep’s recent rant that the SAVE Act will disenfranchise married women, Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s practice of changing the pronouns in books when reading to her children, or most anything said by the ladies on The View. Long left unchecked, the West has been living for decades under the tyranny of "infallible females" — women who never get fact-checked, receive push-back, or hear moral correction.
The road to female infallibility started innocently enough, with most believing that feminism was only trying to level the playing field. Things then accelerated quickly. Feminism had a secret weapon: It was kryptonite for men. Given men’s natural disinclination to fight with women, good men simply went silent about women’s lib, while the bad ones "benefitted" from and promoted it. Without any societal restraint, feminists ran amok, eventually saturating the culture with female dominance, entitlement, and self-righteous confidence.
Anyone who grew up watching TV remembers the endless stream of female-targeted sitcoms and commercials emphasizing women’s competence over men: Men couldn’t buy a car, diaper a baby, or clean a kitchen without a woman’s sage supervision. Advertisers knew that portraying women’s faux superiority over men sold cars, toilet paper, and processed foods. The mirage didn’t stop there. Hiring quotas and lowered physical fitness requirements gave the impression that male/female interchangeability could be achieved, paired with flawed and persistent rhetoric about unequal pay and the glass ceiling. #BelieveAllWomen also fortified the notion that women never lie, especially about sexual assault.
#5
Shorter version: "Women are strong and powerful and you can't hit me 'cause I'm a girl."
Posted by: Matt ||
04/22/2026 8:32 Comments ||
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#6
I understand that it's more difficult for married women to prove their citizenship because their married name is different than the name on their birth certificate. A bit more difficult perhaps but far from impossible. They have to submit a marriage certificate along with the birth certificate. Mrs. Uluque ran into that when she had to get her California Real ID. That, as I understand it, is the issue some women have with the SAVE Act. But it's a gross exaggeration to say that it disenfranchises married women. Gross exaggeration, hyperbole and outright dishonesty are common Democrat ploys so it's no surprise to hear Meryl Streep talking that way.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/22/2026 12:49 Comments ||
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#7
The other day I was wondering why feminists haven't banned opera. There are many arias about women being tricking men by being flirty, insincere and deceitful; some sung by men as in 'Donne et Mabaley in Verdi's Rigoletto, some by women as in Habanera in Bizet's Carmen
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
04/22/2026 12:49 Comments ||
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#8
I thought Meryl Streep was just an Alar/Apples expert. Who knew?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/22/2026 13:00 Comments ||
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#9
When I think about it, I think having to produce a marriage certificate along with a birth certificate should be only a minor inconvenience. That is, unless you're too stupid and lazy to keep track of your own important documents. And if you're that stupid and lazy, maybe you should not vote.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/22/2026 13:07 Comments ||
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#10
Am GenX. End of my twenties I would bar-flirt with the younger ladies in their early twenties, and they were the nastiest bi-nat-aches I had yet to encounter and swore off their whole generation. One after another, yikes, never-mind.
#11
They have to submit a marriage certificate along with the birth certificate. Mrs. Uluque ran into that when she had to get her California Real ID.
We went through gyrations when we had to replace my mother’s Ohio ID after her driver’s license had expired, all unnoticed, over six months previous. She needed her German birth certificate with notarized translation, American citizenship, marriage certificate to her first husband, his death certificate, and her marriage certificate to my father. She had all that and more in a fireproof box under her bed, but before it was found I had the fun of trying to get certified copies of the first marriage certificate and first husband’s death certificate when she could no longer remember where those events had taken place. Once all that was gathered, the State Department decided to put a hold on processing it for reasons unstated, until we ended up consulting an immigration lawyer who had worked with a number of other Holocaust survivors — that jarred things loose, and we got the thing in the mail not long thereafter.
Bottom line, certified copies of the necessary paperwork can be ordered — online, in most cases — from the statistics bureau of the community where the thing took place, and for only a minimal fee that is considerably less, nowadays, than it used to be before the files were computerized and fees paid by credit card or Venmo.
And honestly, were my father still alive today and in need of a state ID, he would have had to go through the same gyrations, given that he was born in Latvia, became first a citizen of the British Empire under the Palestinian Mandate, then an Israeli citizen, then an American citizen — so three languages in two alphabets, three variations of his name, and certified translations of the Latvian and Hebrew documents.
And while any woman who had not changed her name upon marriage would only need her birth certificate, any man who joined his wife in a hyphenated family name upon marriage will have to present the documents to prove it, just as she does.
So idiotic of the noisier of my fellow females to demonstrate the precise depths of their idiocy.
#12
Anna Paulina Luna ‘very confident’ interdimensional beings exist
I myself am a 4-dimensional being, existing in both time and space. Even so, when I moved back to Michigan from Texas, I had to produce 5 separate pieces of ID to get a driver's license. And that was just for a regular pre-fancy ID license.
In Texas, I just had to wave my Michigan license at the DMV and they said, "Here you go! Bye!"
[NYPost] Michigan Democrats had to choose between a Hezbollah-sympathizing radical and a perfectly respectable former Barack Obama attorney.
Given the drift of their party, it wasn’t a difficult choice — it was the virulently anti-Israel extremist all the way.
At their convention over the weekend, Democrats selected Amir Makled as their nominee for a seat on the University of Michigan Board of Regents.
A Dearborn, Mich., lawyer, Makled represented pro-Hamas student demonstrators, called for the university to divest from Israel and expressed great respect for anti-Israel terrorists in social media posts.
He reposted X items referring to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “martyr” after he was killed in an Israeli strike.
He gave the same treatment to a Hezbollah official named Abu Ali Khalil, “a martyr on the road to Jerusalem.”
For his part, Qasem Soleimani got the honorific “Haj” after President Donald Trump eliminated him in a targeted assassination.
All the other terrorists killed by the United States or Israel in recent years might wonder why they didn’t rate and get similar Makled-endorsed Hallmark cards.
The Michigander has been admirably open-minded when it comes to rancid hatred of Israel.
He didn’t let his progressivism stop him from re-tweeting a Candace Owens post calling Israelis “demons,” who “lie, steal, cheat, murder, and blackmail.”
He praised Marjorie Taylor Greene and has endorsed the views of Tucker Carlson and anti-Semitic goon Dan Bilzerian.
Once upon a time, the mere association with such figures would be a deal-breaker in Democratic politics, but we live in the age of the horseshoe.
Extremes on the left and the right meet on common ground from different directions; the foremost wild-eyed left-right consensus is that Israel is a malign power with untoward power in US domestic politics.
It is telling that the Democratic incumbent on the Board of Regents that Amir Makled defeated, Jordan Acker, is a Jewish former Obama official who saw his office and his home vandalized in pro-Hamas agitation. (Another, non-Jewish Democratic incumbent member of the board survived the convention.)
We are witnessing the rise of the Dearborn Democrats, not in the literal sense, but in the same sense that Jeanne Kirkpatrick coined the phrase “San Francisco Democrats” in the 1980s.
Back then, San Francisco, an elite coastal city, stood for the dovishness and permissiveness of liberalism; today, Dearborn, home to a large Arab-American enclave, stands for an all-consuming opposition to Israel with all that entails, including a conspiratorial view of AIPAC and an underlying anti-Westernism.
The ethos of the 2024 “uncommitted movement” in Michigan, urging voters not to vote for Joe Biden in protest of his support for the Gaza war, has now surged to a formidable position within the Democratic Party.
A new Decision Desk poll shows 75% of Democrats favor the Palestinians over the Israelis.
The swing against Israel is even more pronounced among young voters.
An Echelon Insights survey found that among Democrats under age 50, 54% had an unfavorable view of Iran — while 62% had an unfavorable view of Israel.
The anti-Israel views of the right-wing influencers promoted by Amir Makled have yet to measurably change the orientation of GOP politics, but the Democrats are shifting rapidly.
In Democrats’ Senate primary in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, who says Israel is as evil as Hamas, could well prevail.
In New Jersey last week, Democrat Analilia Mejia, who had hesitated to say that Israel has a right to exist, won a House special election.
A Bernie Sanders-sponsored resolution to block the sale of military bulldozers to Israel last week won the support of 40 out of 47 Senate Democrats.
The Dearborn tendency, if it reaches full fruition, will leave many Jewish Democrats feeling politically homeless.
It will make the Democratic Party even more reflective of campus radicalism.
And if a Democrat wins the White House in 2028, the United States may well begin to treat Israel as though it’s the equivalent of apartheid-era South Africa.
A serious concern post Trump, which is why Bibi Netqnyahu has committed to end accepting American taxpayer funds, and why Israel is bringing armaments supply in-house instead of buying from America or anywhere else. France, Britain, Germany, and Italy have been playing games since 10/7, as did the Biden administration, an existential threat.
#2
Tic Toc
Dearborn is a timebomb.
Only a matter of time.
Every time they get critical mass in any community, something happens.
We'll see.
Notice how Fairfx is in the news. Remember that stabbing at the bus stop last month. Al-Hijrah, Muslim Brotherhood have a mega moque in the area. Just saying...
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Alexey Statsenko
[REGNUM] Modern Ukraine suffers from a shortage of historical heroes. Anything that can be presented as a source of pride is used. One such figure is Symon Petliura. But the act of treason committed by this leading ataman and chairman of the Ukrainian Directory remains largely unnoticed. This "betrayal" occurred exactly 106 years ago.
On the night of April 21-22, 1920, Petliura and the head of the Polish state, Józef Piłsudski, signed the Warsaw Treaty.
This term was persistent in diplomatic literature until it was overshadowed by the 1955 document of the same name, which created a military bloc led by the USSR. In modern Eastern Europe, the "new" Warsaw Pact is generally considered unequal and almost enslaving. But compared to the Pilsudski-Petliura Pact, it was a mutually beneficial agreement.
According to the 1920 agreement, the Poles received Western Ukraine and free cannon fodder in the form of Petliura units armed at the expense of the French.
Why did the Ukrainian state, whose successor the current Kyiv regime claims to be, become a puppet state for its former masters? To understand, we need to look back to the events of 1919.
SURRENDER OF TERRITORIES
One of the main political holidays in modern Ukraine, the so-called Day of Unity, or Day of Zluka (Unification), is directly connected with the personality of Petliura.
On January 22, 1919, on the day of the first anniversary of the declaration of independence of Ukraine, in Kiev on Sophia Square, the Act of Unification of the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR) and the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) into a "single sovereign people's republic" was solemnly read to the population.
Less than a month later, Petliura, head of the UNR Directory, sent a secret mission to Warsaw, led by Colonel Borys Kurdinovsky. Petliurites were no match for the Red Army and Denikin's Armed Forces of Southern Russia and were seeking potential allies and arms suppliers.
But for the Entente countries, the socialist government of the UPR was little better than the Bolsheviks. Moreover, the UPR had discredited itself by flirting with defeated Germany.
Therefore, both Denikin and Poland (both forces were France's primary clients) had a huge advantage over the UPR and ZUNR. In France, Józef Haller's "Blue Army" was formed from Poles. It reported directly to France and was armed with about a hundred tanks. Petliurites simply had no countermeasure against them.
As a result of the negotiations with Poland, the chief ataman apparently also wanted to receive some of the weapons and ammunition. He wasn't particularly concerned that, while he was secretly negotiating, the Ukrainian Galician Army (UGA)—the armed forces of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic—was engaged in heavy fighting with the Polish Army in Western Ukraine.
Since Kurdinovsky's mission had semi-official powers, at the beginning of May, the "chief of state" Pilsudski suggested that Petliura contact him directly, and he agreed.
A Polish intelligence officer, Jan Mazurkiewicz, arrived at the Headquarters of the Directorate in Chorny Ostrov (present-day Khmelnytskyi Oblast) after crossing the front line under the guise of an escaped Ukrainian prisoner of war.
The emissary voiced Pilsudski's proposals: Warsaw would recognize the Ukrainian People's Republic, in exchange for which Petliura would cede to the Poles Galicia, Western Volyn, Kholmshchyna, Polesia, and Podlasie—that is, most of today's Western Ukraine and part of the territory of modern Belarus.
Petliura was asked to surrender the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, with which they had recently reunited with such pomp.
The Cabinet of Ministers of the Ukrainian People's Republic was not outraged by such an encroachment on borders and territorial integrity, but, on the contrary, supported the "peaceful dialogue."
INFORMATION BOMB
The draft of the Warsaw Treaty was concluded on May 24, 1919, by chief negotiator Kurdinovsky and Polish Prime Minister Jan Paderewski. Paderewski conveyed a promise to assist the army of the chief ataman in the fight against the Reds. The Galicians of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic were not informed of this.
In July 1919, when the Poles, Czechoslovaks, and Romanians had completely captured the territory of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, Pilsudski again approached Petliura with a proposal to continue negotiations. Petliura again agreed, sending a mission to Warsaw.
In private, the Polish dictator often repeated that the Ruthenians weren't going anywhere—they simply had to choose Poland as an ally. He only began calling the residents of Galicia and Volhynia "Ukrainians" in 1920.
However, Petliura tried to avoid fulfilling his promises. The Ukrainian side continually delayed the start of high-level negotiations. Then Pilsudski ordered the "information bomb" to be detonated—the publication of the text of the secret agreements of May 24, 1919.
At that moment, the political and military leaders of the UPR and ZUNR gathered in one city, Kamianets-Podilskyi. And the Galicians had the opportunity to directly tell Petliura everything they thought of him.
The chieftain attempted to calm the Galicians: at a joint meeting, a plan was developed to annul all agreements with the Poles.
WESTERNERS PREFERRED RUSSIA
On October 3, a joint diplomatic mission of the UPR and ZUNR arrived in Warsaw, the purpose of which was to sign a truce with the Poles and agree on the creation of a united front against the Bolsheviks.
But upon learning that Petliura's government had once again begun to yield to Warsaw, the patience of the ZUNR leadership in exile and the Galician Army command snapped, and they began separate negotiations with Denikin. The Armed Forces of South Russia declared the restoration of a united and indivisible Russia and did not envisage any independent Ukraines—but the Whites proved more acceptable to the Galicians than their fellow Ukrainians in Petliura's camp.
"Zluka" turned into separation without even really beginning.
After this, Petliura declared: "It's now clear to me that the Galicians, with their sympathies for Moscow, will perish themselves and leave us no breathing space. It's impossible to convince them otherwise, just as it's impossible to convince us that it would be better with Moscow…"
That is, instead of negotiating with one of the Russian sides (Whites or Reds), the leader of the Directory saw only one path for Ukraine: surrendering territories to the Poles.
In November 1919, the Galicians concluded the Zyatkovo Armistice with the representative of the Armed Forces of South Russia, General Yakov Slashchev, which essentially transferred the Galician Army to the control of Denikin.
By that time, the ZUNR government had fled to Vienna, and Petliura had become a dictator in the “remnant” of the UNR, caught between the Poles, the Reds, and the Whites.
"TACTICAL MOVE"
The last obstacles to an agreement with Poland and the Ukrainian People's Republic, in the form of disgruntled Galicians, had disappeared. On December 2, 1920, a draft declaration was signed, ceding Western Ukraine to Poland. The Poles immediately began training new units from captured Ukrainian soldiers in the Galician and Volyn lands they had occupied.
Two days later, representatives of the Galicians informed the UPR embassy in Warsaw and the Polish government about the denunciation of the “Act of Zluka” by the ZUNR government.
Petliura’s predecessor as head of the UNR Directory, writer, playwright and revolutionary Volodymyr Vynnychenk, was also outraged :
"The ataman's regime, represented by S. Petliura... was still taking measures in Warsaw to save its power, was still knocking on the doors of the Polish imperialist gentry, was begging, begging, and even giving land to Polish landowners in Podolia and Volyn..."
Disillusioned with the Otaman regime, Vynnychenko defected to the Bolsheviks—fortunately, he occupied the far left wing of the nationalist movement. In 1920, he served as deputy head of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR, and later emigrated painlessly.
In the winter of 1920, the indignation of the Galician “traitors” and the “almost Bolshevik” Vynnychenko did not interest Petliura.
But just in case, he explained: the surrender of territories and manpower was “a tactical move to establish contact with Europe” and “an act of salvation for the further conduct of our struggle.”
However, the details of the negotiations at Warsaw's Belvedere Palace were kept secret from most politicians and generals of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Many were unaware that the negotiations were even taking place.
IN THE POLISH CONVOY
Three days after the conclusion of the Pilsudski-Petliura Pact, on April 24, another secret document was signed: the "Military Agreement between Poland and Ukraine." It stated:
“Joint Polish-Ukrainian actions against Soviet troops on the territory of right-bank Ukraine, located to the east of the current line of the Polish-Bolshevik front, are carried out… under the general command of Polish troops.”
Petliura, while acquiring “recognition of Ukraine by Poland” on paper, lost sovereignty in real life.
Almost immediately, in payment for the weapons received from Ukraine, trains began to depart for Poland, transporting sugar, flour, grain, cattle, and horses.
In April 1920, the Polish Army, with Ukrainian units attached to it, invaded Ukraine, looting, killing, and committing anti-Jewish pogroms. On May 7, the Polish army entered Kyiv, abandoned by the Red Army.
Mikhail Bulgakov recalled : "For some reason, some Polish lords arrived... with French long-range cannons. They spent a month and a half strolling around Kiev. <…>...These Europeanized cousins decided to show off their explosives and smashed three bridges across the Dnieper, including the Chain Bridge, to smithereens."
The Poles, in whose convoy the Ukrainian authorities arrived in Kyiv, ruled the city only until the first week of June.
The Red Army's Kiev operation, launched in late May by the 12th and 14th Armies and Semyon Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army, was successful: the Red Army crossed the Dnieper River north and south of the city and captured it by June 16. Pilsudski's armies began a rapid retreat westward, taking with them the remnants of Petliura's forces.
The Reds occupied Central and Western Ukraine and entered Poland, but due to the ambitions and lack of coordination among the Red Army commanders, they lost the decisive battle for Warsaw.
Soviet Russia first agreed to an armistice, and then, in March 1921, to the Treaty of Riga with Poland. Under this agreement, Pilsudski received what Petliura had previously given him: Western Ukraine.
By this time, the chief ataman and chairman of the Ukrainian Directory had lost all significance—his army had shrunk to the size of a single army regiment.
The remainder of the UPR army was sent on a "winter campaign" at the end of 1921; the units that invaded in violation of the Riga Treaty (Warsaw denied involvement) were defeated by Grigory Kotovsky's brigade.
On May 25, 1926, Petliura was shot dead in Paris by Izmail-born émigré Solomon Schwartzburd. Upon his arrest, Schwartzburd claimed he had taken revenge on the former head of the Directory for the Jewish pogroms that had occurred with the connivance or participation of Petliura's atamans. The jury found Schwartzburd's arguments convincing; he was acquitted and released in the courtroom.
Such was the unenviable fate of the Ukrainian "caliph for an hour," who, in the hope of maintaining his power, surrendered everything he could to his European "partners."
Long, dense, lots of tables and figures for you visual types. Herewith the opening and conclusion:
[CSIS] Concern about the status of U.S. munitions inventories has intensified as reports emerge about high expenditures of Tomahawks, Patriots, and other missiles in the Iran war. As Operation Epic Fury remains paused in a shaky ceasefire, there is an opportunity to assess whether the U.S. military nears the point of going “Winchester”—or running out of ammunition.
Analysis of seven key munitions shows that the United States has enough missiles to continue fighting this war under any plausible scenario. The risk—which will persist for many years—lies in future wars.
In the 39 days of the air and missile campaign before the ceasefire, U.S. forces heavily used the seven munitions in Table 1. For four of them, the United States may have expended more than half of the prewar inventory. Rebuilding to prewar levels for the seven munitions will take from one to four years as missiles in the pipeline are delivered. These missiles will also be critical for a potential Western Pacific conflict. Even before the Iran war, stockpiles were deemed insufficient for a peer competitor fight. That shortfall is now even more acute, and building stockpiles to levels adequate for a war with China will take additional time.
Diminished inventories will also affect the U.S. supply of Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defenses (THAADs), and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) to Ukraine and other allies and partners that use them. The United States will compete with those countries that also want to replenish and expand inventories.
MANY MUNITIONS HAVE ACCEPTABLE INVENTORIES
Before delving into munitions with shortages, it is worth recognizing that many munitions have acceptable inventories. Thus, even if critical munitions run low or run out, the United States will be able to continue the fight.
For ground attack munitions, available alternatives are far cheaper but with the same explosive yield. To illustrate the cost difference, a BLU-110 bomb fitted with a Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit costs less than $100,000 while a Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) costs $2.6 million. Both accurately deliver 1,000-pound payloads. These munitions, however, have a shorter range and, thereby, put launch platforms in more danger. Air superiority is required to use them extensively. The alternatives include, but are not limited to:
Jumping to the end:.
CONCLUSION: RISK IN THE NEXT WAR
If inventories are so depleted, how can the analysis conclude that the United States has enough munitions for this war? The answer lies in the dramatic drop in usage from the early days of the war. For ground attacks, the less expensive and more plentiful munitions of Figure 1 have largely replaced the long-range munitions (TLAMs, JASSMs, and PrSMs). Air and missile defense expenditures came down because Iran’s drone and missile attacks were way down after the first few days. Whereas Iran fired more than 2,000 drones and 500 ballistic missiles in the first four days, launches were down, respectively, by 83 and 90 percent after a week.
The diminished munitions stockpiles have created a near-term risk. A war against a capable peer competitor like China will consume munitions at greater rates than in this war. Prewar inventories were already insufficient; the levels today will constrain U.S. operations should a future conflict arise.
President Trump has accepted this munitions risk—alongside other tradeoffs like the diversion of forces from the Western Pacific. The theory here appears to be that it is important to decisively win the current war you are in, rather than to hold back and preserve capability for a future war that may never happen. Once Operation Epic Fury ends, the naval assets sent to the Middle East will return to the Pacific. Munitions inventories will start to recover, but restoring depleted stockpiles and then achieving the desired inventory levels will take many years.
Posted by: Clem+Elmish4239 ||
04/22/2026 05:37 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
There seems to be an overstock of unsold automobiles.
Poss due to COVID/interest rates/economy slowdown/unwanted features and excess manufacturing capacity.
Can the manufacturing lines be turned to munitions?
[IsraelTimes] While Islamic Republic’s leaders have found unity by taking a hard line, negotiations with US could test panel that now seems to be running Iran by exposing divisions among its members
After US-Israeli bombardment eliminated Iran’s supreme leader and much of its top echelons, the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s leadership didn’t fall apart — but negotiations to end the war offer a new test.
For decades, the supreme leader successfully managed several powerful factions, bringing to heel those who challenged his authority while listening to rival opinions. It’s now unclear who wields that kind of authority over the collection of civilian figures and powerful generals from the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who appear to be in charge.
They have found unity — for now — by taking a tough line. But disagreements over how much to concede in negotiations with the United States could reveal fault lines, as Pak mediators try to host a new round of talks this week.
A COMMITTEE NOW APPEARS TO BE IN CHARGE
In the past, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> was able to impose his will on the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s disparate power centers. After Israeli strikes killed him on the first day of the war, his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded him.
But doubts continue to swirl over the younger Khamenei’s role after reports he was maimed in the strikes. Still in hiding, he has not appeared in public since becoming supreme leader and how he gives orders to top leaders is a mystery.
At the center of power now is a politburo-like body known as the Supreme National Security Council, which includes Iran’s top civilian and military officials. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker and a veteran insider with strong contacts on all sides, has emerged as its face and the chief negotiator with the US.
The late Khamenei began giving more authority to the council before his death, but the war has consolidated its power.
The council contains a range of political opinions and often acute rivalries. A political rival of Ghalibaf and uncompromising opponent of the US, Saeed Jalili, represents the supreme leader on the council, while the body’s nominal head is reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Hard-liner members include the IRGC’s new chief commander, Ahmad Vahidi, and the council’s new secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, also a commander in the IRGC.
But Israel’s strategy of eliminating top leaders points to a misreading of how the Islamic Theocratic Republic works, experts say.
Iran’s leadership survived "precisely because there are multiple power centers with overlapping authorities," said Ali Vaez, Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... director at the International Crisis Group. "Factionalism is just built into the DNA of this system."
But since the war, the IRGC’s growing clout on the council has also stoked speculation that a fundamental change could be coming.
NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE US WILL STRESS TEST THE POWER STRUCTURE
The council now faces potentially divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... questions over how far to go to reach a deal with the US, which is demanding Iran make major concessions aimed at ensuring it is never able to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful while saying it has the right to uranium enrichment.
In an interview with Iranian state TV on Sunday, Ghalibaf said Iran wants a comprehensive accord that brings "a lasting peace" where the US no longer attacks the country.
"This dangerous loop needs to be cut," he said. The US has twice launched strikes on Iran during high-level negotiations: once in the 12-day war in June, then again in the current conflict.
Council members have projected confidence that Iran holds the upper hand now, particularly because its grip on the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial passage for the world’s oil — enables it to drive up fuel prices, thus threatening the global economy and exerting political pressure on US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th and 47th President of the United States... back home.
Senior officials have insisted they can hold out for assurances that Iran won’t be attacked again — even risking the war reigniting — because they believe Iran can endure the pain longer than the United States and its allies.
But ultimately, the leadership’s priority remains its own survival. The war and the US blockade — which is threatening Iran’s oil trade — are tightening the screws on the country’s cratering economy.
Economic hardship has fueled waves of unrest over the past two decades, including protests in January that openly called for the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s overthrow. A deal with the West lifting sanctions could help it keep its grip at home.
"It is easier to imagine that the regime would try to make a concession to the West in order to ensure its survival than to its own people," Vaez said.
SIGNS OF DISAGREEMENT
Events over the weekend surrounding the Strait of Hormuz gave an indication of serious differences over how much to concede in negotiations. Engagement with Washington has long divided Iran’s top ranks, despite a shared deep mistrust of the US.
On Friday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced in a posting on X that Iran was opening the strait to commercial traffic as part of the ceasefire agreement with the US Hours later, Trump proclaimed that the US would continue its blockade to keep pressure on Iran to reach a deal over its nuclear program.
On Saturday morning, Iran’s military announced that it was reclosing the strait in retaliation for the blockade.
Some Iranian media criticized Araghchi, suggesting his post created the impression Iran was showing weakness — and revealing the differing positions behind the scenes. A report by the Tasnim news agency, seen as close to the IRGC, said the position on the strait should have come from the National Security Council itself.
Araghchi’s office pushed back, saying the Foreign Ministry "does not take any action without coordinating with higher-level institutions."
In his interview Sunday, Ghalibaf tried to paper over any divisions, emphasizing that everyone in the leadership was on the same page on Iran’s strategy in US talks.
A POSSIBLE BRIDGE BUILDER
The 64-year-old Ghalibaf is best positioned to bridge divides among Iran’s factions, said Arash Azizi, an Iranian journalist and columnist at the Atlantic who has written on the insider politician and the IRGC.
Ghalibaf is a former general in the IRGC and national police chief and kept close to the IRGC throughout his long political career. As Tehran’s mayor from 2005 to 2017, Ghalibaf gained a reputation as a pragmatist able to get things done — like overhauling an ailing public transport system — even as he faced major corruption and human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... abuse allegations.
Ghalibaf has political currency within the IRGC, "and he has the conservatives on his side. But he also now has very robust backing from the reformists and the centrists," Azizi said.
Ali Rabie, a well-known reformist and an assistant to the president, wrote last week in a newspaper editorial that Ghalibaf was "the representative of the country and the regime."
At the same time, Ghalibaf is close to the Khamenei family both hailing from the area of the eastern shrine city of Mashhad, said Mohsen Sazegara, one of the founders of the IRGC in the 1980s who is now an opposition figure living in the US During his father’s rule, Mojtaba Khamenei backed Ghalibaf’s several unsuccessful attempts to run for president.
Ghalibaf is also close to the senior Guard figures who stepped in to replace those killed by Israel — and who are widely seen as holding the key to any future agreement with the US His cross-factional backing could enable him to ensure support at home for a deal against blowback from ideologues who will resist compromise.
[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump claims the US “space force has cameras on every inch” of the three Iran nuclear sites hit by the US in the June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer.
In his latest Truth Social post, Trump claims the strikes “totally obliterated the Nuclear Dust locations to the point where bloodthirsty Iran has been unable to get to it or dig it out.”
#1
Let’s talk for about three weeks. See if they get squirrely. If they don’t, we need to figure out who in the EU is funding the regime or whether Russia or China are buying equity. There is still an outside chance that the US government is somehow sending them cash like we are funding the Taliban.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/22/2026 6:22 Comments ||
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#2
Survival is always challenging.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/22/2026 8:43 Comments ||
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#3
If two countries are trying to negotiate an agreement and, let's say, four of your negotiators are killed (Ali Larjani, Kamal Kharazi, Ali Shamkhani and Ismail Khatib just to pick some names out of the air), how eager would you be to return to the negotiations?
#5
Well Mossomo, so far it looks like we killed those who were the moderates (by their standards). If they decide to send expendable negotiators to the next session, they may figure ours are in the same category. I'm thinking Zoom calls using VPN re-route for the next round of talks.
And btw - the math used, as other have pointed out, is absolutely gay. And using Parody accounts impersonating celebrities as a source and citation is gay too. I'm not say you are gaying up Rantburg, idk what else you would call it, but it's free board, so I went tell you not to be so gay all your life, but maybe consider the possibility.
The account "imjulianassange" or similar variations (often misspelling the name) on X (formerly Twitter) is not operated by the real Julian Assange. Stella Assange, his wife, has stated that he does not operate any personal social media accounts, and that impersonators are often trying to scam or manipulate users.
#4
The account "imjulianassange" or similar variations (often misspelling the name) on X (formerly Twitter) is not operated by the real Julian Assange. Stella Assange, his wife, has stated that he does not operate any personal social media accounts, and that impersonators are often trying to scam or manipulate users.
Good catch, mossomo. I’l change the headline appropriately.
#5
The account "imjulianassange" or similar variations (often misspelling the name) on X (formerly Twitter) is not operated by the real Julian Assange. Stella Assange, his wife, has stated that he does not operate any personal social media accounts, and that impersonators are often trying to scam or manipulate users.
Now *that* is an interesting data point! All part of the Enshitification of Everything, I guess. Thank you, mossomo!
[JOHNKASSNEWS] In early March 2026, mere days into the United States and Israel's latest war against Iran, various news outlets reported that President Donald Trump had engaged directly with Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish leaders to promote an uprising spearheaded by Iran's Kurdish minority against the Iranian regime. The White House denied these assertions. On March 6, a Reuters exclusive reported that Israel, which has its own contacts with Iranian Kurds, was backing their plans to seize Iranian territory. The next day, however, Trump declared that he had "ruled out" Kurdish participation in the war. "I don't want to see the Kurds going in…we don't want to make the war any more complex than it already is," he said.
Naturally, the picture of who is doing what to whom, the tactical options, and questions as to whether and to what extent the U.S. and Israel actually have the same strategic objectives in this war, including with respect to Kurds, are murky and subject to change. But why the concern about complexity when it comes to the Kurds? After all, along with some skeptical reporting and analysis highlighting the dangers of supporting a Kurdish rebellion in Iran‐in marked contrast to media cheerleading for the U.S. partnership, launched under President Barack Obama, with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)‐there is a narrative in Western and Israeli outlets that Kurdish participation in the war would be crucial to success not only against the Iranian regime but for long-term Israeli security, and that Kurds can be deployed for precise war aims. From this perspective, it is almost as if "the Kurds" constitute an object of uniform density with immutable attributes and capabilities, to be manipulated at will.
Under the circumstances, it is perhaps a good time to look at some of those underlying complexities of the regional Kurdish issue, particularly characteristics that by and large have been only superficially covered or even ignored in Western media. What happens in the Iranian provinces of Kordestan, Kermanshah, and other Kurd-populated regions of northwestern Iran, known in Kurdish as Rojhelat, or the East‐just as the predominantly Kurdish areas in northern Syria are known as Rojava, or the West, among Kurds everywhere‐is unlikely to stay there. These dynamics could potentially have a profound effect on stability in Iran and across a vast swath of western Asia and the Middle East, with major implications for U.S. strategic interests in the region for decades to come.
First, some relatively recent history. For centuries, Kurds were a vital element of the neighboring Ottoman and Safavid empires. These two great Islamic, multiethnic states achieved stable bilateral relations in the 17th century following an era of geopolitical conflict and shrewd Ottoman diplomacy, ultimately establishing a border that delineates the territories of predominantly Sunni Turkey and Shia Iran even today. From then until the 20th century the great majority of Kurds lived under the Ottoman aegis.
But with the defeat and division of the Empire by the victorious Western powers at the end of the First World War‐often referred to in shorthand, derisively, as the "Sykes-Picot" process‐Ottoman Kurdish homelands were given over to what after the end of the postwar Mandate period became the new states of present day Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, the new, modernized Turkish state, founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in successful resistance to postwar foreign encroachments, retained most of the Kurdish areas. These states, and Iran, to one degree or another attempted with only limited success to terraform their societies along Western-influenced, rigidly secularist and nationalist lines. The "Kemalists" of Turkey were perhaps the most enthusiastic in pursuit of wholesale ideological, revolutionary change, fearful that any recognition of Kurdish interests posed an existential threat to the Kemalist state-building project.
For their part, Kurds never fully accommodated to the postwar order. They began almost immediately to rebel against the new authorities, whose suppression of Kurdish institutions and identity persisted at varying levels of intensity and ruthlessness throughout the 20th century. While recently there has been considerable change and improvement in the situation of the Kurds‐notably the de facto end of the Kemalist ideological regime at the hands of the current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the emergence of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) as a significant regional actor, and most recently in Syria with the agreements between Kurdish groups and interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa formally establishing Kurdish rights for the first time in that country‐profound challenges remain, particularly in present-day Iran.
Today, of all the subplots of the Iran war, the Kurds and their political, cultural, and religious aspirations present among the most far-reaching implications not only for Iran but also for Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, a NATO ally and an increasingly important regional power. These countries have sizable Kurdish populations‐often connected by tribes, conscious of their shared Kurdishness but highly competitive and fractious‐that extend across the modern borders of these states. Today, most of the world's 30 to 40 million Kurds live in and are citizens of Turkey, with roughly 8 million and 10 million in Iraq and Iran, respectively. There are another 2 million Kurds in Syria, mostly in the areas along the Turkish border.
Since the 1990–91 Gulf War, which brought new attention to the region, Kurds of various backgrounds have become more open and ardent in expressing their long-suppressed sense of Kurdish identity and nationalist sentiment, even when disagreeing among themselves as to what, precisely, some of the pillars of that identity are. Certainly, as reflected in Western media, there is a Western tutelary preference for what "the Kurds" ought to be, the legacy of a deeply-rooted and institutionalized interest among elites in spreading "democracy" and American influence in the Middle East. While reportage occasionally notes that there are different Kurdish organizations and entities across the region, far more frequently it leaves an impression of the Kurds as a sociocultural monolith, often represented by one or another variety of secular modernist organizations, conversant with Western languages, ways, and interests.
For example, during the decade before the second Trump Administration took office in 2025, the SDF was America's principal Syrian avatar in the counterterrorism war against ISIS. In fact, as I've written previously in these pages, the SDF is a cover name for the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê), a cultish, U.S.-designated terrorist group of Marxist origin. The PKK's command and sub-elements extend throughout the Kurdish regions, including a group in Iran known as Kurdistan Free Life Party (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê, or PJAK). The PKK has fought a separatist war principally but not exclusively against Turkish security forces and political organizations‐including Kurdish groups there and across the region‐for over 40 years, in clashes that have generated some 40,000 deaths. Despite the fact that the SDF oppressed its Kurdish political rivals and committed violence against deep-seated cultural values, including through kidnappings and the forcible induction of children into the PKK's ranks, it is still often identified in the media as "the Kurds," pure and simple, and retains its supporters in the U.S., the government-NGO industrial complex, the U.S. military, and in the Congress.
The media's routine, persistent elision of the true nature of the PKK/SDF and its preference for using romanticized terms to describe the organization have contributed to major, negative, and persistent consequences for American and Western policies in the region. By obfuscating unpleasant realities that, if more fully understood, probably would have served as a brake on the aspirations of SDF/PKK proponents, the media‐as is often the case in Washington‐willingly helped insulate opinion-shapers and policymakers from the implications of their decisions. American leadership thus often failed to think seriously about how U.S. support for a Marxist-origin terrorist group in a region of relatively conservative religious sensibilities risked alienating the locals, aiding militant recruitment efforts, complicating strategic relations with Ankara, and destabilizing the KRI.
The first Trump administration tried but failed to end Washington's partnership with the SDF, but has succeeded this time around, dashing the PKK's aspirations for a neo-Marxist statelet that, if unchecked, was very likely to have generated a regional conflict. Even so, SDF supporters on the Hill continue to fight a rear-guard action in the hope that, eventually, pressures emanating from the Iran war will shift the ground yet again in their favor.
Snip. Read the rest at the link.
Nicholas Spyridon Kass served in the U.S. government for 32 years at the White House/National Security Council, State Department, CIA, and most recently (until January 2026) as the acting chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). He can be found on X and LinkedIn.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/22/2026 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[1784 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Was he writing an essay for his high school English teacher that had to have so many words? Sorry guys, I know a lot of you worked in government jobs that I don't know anything about, but his 32 years of experience doesn't give me any high hopes on what he is saying.
Posted by: chris ||
04/22/2026 0:17 Comments ||
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#2
we don't want to make the war any more complex than it already is
#5
John Kass had a stroke, he's temporarily using guest editors
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/22/2026 7:34 Comments ||
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#6
TLDR, but I agree that the Kurds occupying and keeping Iranian land is something that MIGHT get the populace and regular army to reluctantly support the current regime.
#7
The Kurdish population in Iran is, IIUC, more 'we want to part of a new Iran' then 'we want to be part of a large Kurdistan State'.
Which is why the Kurds haven't been doing a lot of fighting lately in their parts of Iran.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
04/22/2026 12:42 Comments ||
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#8
Skid knows.
Funny stuff: I saw the headline and I thought who in Deep State is legitimizing the Kurd's non-involvement in the toppling of the Iranian Mullahs. Then I saw who the author was and rofl. Called it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
