The arguments about Iran are so polarised that no one wants to admit that several things are true at once:
You'd be a fool not to have serious reservations about the idea of a regime change war, especially in the Middle East.
You'd also be a fool to allow terrorist-funding lunatics to develop nuclear weapons.
Neither the people condemning these strikes, nor the people cheering them on know how this is going to work out.
So far, Trump Administration interventions have been extraordinarily successful in achieving valid objectives within a highly limited scope.
The strikes on Iran during the 12 day war achieved destruction of several nuclear facilities.
The Venezuela operation decapitated the hostile regime and replaced Maduro with a non-hostile leader.
Both also achieved significant "don't fuck with us" deterrence globally.
However, it is not remotely clear at this moment in time whether something similar can be achieved in Iran.
I understand and fully empathise with the people who think regime change is not going to work in Iran and you'll end up with the same as what you had or worse.
And I understand just as much the people who celebrate an evil dictator being killed and Iran's nuclear and military assets being degraded further.
The thing we do not know, and the thing that will determine whether this has all been worth it, is what the future leadership of Iran will look like. This seems to me to be the biggest risk Donald Trump has taken at any time in his first or second term. If it pays off, the reward both domestically and globally will be huge. If it doesn't and things go south, it could derail his Presidency and define his legacy like Iraq did for Blair and Bush.
Very few people have any idea which of these scenarios is more likely and one thing is for sure: none of them are talking about it on social media because they're all sitting in command bunkers, not on X.
I hope the people of Iran are released from living under tyranny. I hope the peoples of the Middle East can live in peace.
I hope the takeaway for any would-be terrorist is the realisation that October 7 might not have been such a good idea.
I hope that with the Middle East stabilised, the US can turn its attentions to the theatres that really matters to the security of the West: Russia and China.
Whether any of that happens remains to be seen and it seems the hardest thing for anyone to do is to not express an opinion before the smoke has cleared.
JUST IN: The Charlie Kirk Show has gone live. Charlie's seat at the table is there - and it's empty.
An absolutely crushing scene. All of them are holding back tears.
"Charlie would've wanted us to be here. He would've been upset if we weren't here. We've left his chair open and empty, because nobody could ever fill it."
Last night my oldest son said to me “Dad, me and all my friends are going to wear a coat & tie to school tomorrow.”
At drop off today I realized the entire school was doing it, when effectively every student was wearing a coat and tie.
What I found remarkable was they wore a coat and tie not because the school forced them to, or recommended it, but the student body decided to on their own, out of respect for @charliekirk11.
Admittedly, I did not know much about Charlie Kirk, but he clearly has had a profound impact on young American men.
It appears he really connected with them, and they are very, very sad about what happened.
And while we don’t know who the killer is or the motive, I would bet my dollar that what drove the killer to commit the murder of Charlie Kirk was to “shut him up”, but in the process only created 1,000X more Charlie Kirk’s.
Godspeed Charlie, and my heart aches for his wife and two young children.
The great and powerful @elonmusk.
If it wasn't for him we'd be fucked. He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you'll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.
For the record, yes, that's an endorsement of Trump.
Enjoy the podcast
I regularly use these AIs:
- GPT 4/4o - programming, learning, planning
- Grok - learning, news, fun, free speech
- Gemini 1.5 - working w/ huge text
- Claude 3 - natural-sounding convos
- Perplexity - for deep-dive research on topics
Thank you to the teams that build these!
Fuck it giving away another $10,000 Rolex. Like/retweet and follow me to enter. Choosing winner in 24 hours ❤️❤️ . Last one did so good we gave away 2 Rolexes!!