From Robert Kagan, husband of Victoria Newland

America is now a rogue superpower'https://archive.md/aZrz9 commentary by Simplicius https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sanctity-lost-even-neocon-pantheon

Karbala, Mohyal Brahmins*, and the Spirit Driving Iran’s Defiance

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10234041695812852&set=a.10202364730428515 see also Rahul Singh Gautam's comment: In contrast to its organic emergence in Arabia, Islam’s arrival in Persia in the 7th century CE was a cataclysmic event. The Arab conquests (633–651 CE) toppled the Sassanid Empire, one of the ancient world’s great powers, and introduced Islam to a civilization with millennia of philosophical, literary, and religious tradition. Unlike Arabia, where Islam built upon existing cultural frameworks, in Persia, it dismantled them. Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion of pre-Islamic Iran, had shaped Persian ethics through its triad of “good thoughts, good words, good deeds”. Its dualistic cosmology, emphasizing the struggle between good (Ahura Mazda) and evil (Ahriman), provided a moral and metaphysical foundation for Persian society. The Achaemenid (550–330 BCE) and Sassanid (224–651 CE) empires, renowned for their administrative genius, architectural splendor, and religious tolerance, represented a civilizational high point. Yet, under Islamic rule, these legacies were marginalized, labeled as jahiliyyah, the age of ignorance, a term that dismissed pre-Islamic Persian achievements as barbaric. Iran’s disillusionment is rooted in a collective memory of what might have been. Unlike the Arab world, which sees Islam as the culmination of its historical trajectory, Iran has never stopped imagining an alternative path. The revival of Zoroastrianism, though practiced by fewer than 25,000 Iranians, symbolizes this longing for a pre-Islamic identity as a rejection of Islamic hegemony. No comparable civilizational rupture exists in the Arab world. Even Arab secularism operates within an Islamic cultural grammar. From Ba’athism to post–Arab Spring political experiments, Islam remains the unquestioned civilizational backdrop. For Arabs, Islam is not experienced as an imposition but as an origin story. For Iranians, it remains a foreign layer, internalized, institutionalized, yet never fully reconciled with a deeper sense of self. This is why Islam functions differently in Iran than anywhere else in the Muslim world. In Arab societies, Islam anchors identity. In Iran, it constrains it. What the Arab world regards as continuity, Iran experiences as displacement. And until that civilizational tension is resolved, Islam in Iran will remain not a source of belonging, but a reminder of what was lost

Craig Murray visits Venezuela

" The claims that Rodríguez wants this, still more that she engineered this, are nuts." https://orinocotribune.com/the-weight-on-delcy-rodriguez/ "I have now spent a total of six weeks in the country over two trips, talking to students, diplomats, union leaders, commune activists and people inside the government – and a great many barmen. What I have seen and heard convinces me of one thing above all: Delcy Rodríguez is not a traitor. She is a socialist doing the only thing possible to her in this impossible situation — buying time for the Bolivarian Revolution to survive."

Larry Johnson and colonel Macgregor on Iran

long interview with both by Mario Nawfal https://www.youtube.com/live/oNr0zoT_vDM?si=3nZvYfjil07-ITFg

Yves Smith daily round up on Iran

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/03/iran-war-trump-threatens-destruction-of-iran-electric-generation-and-oil-wells-even-as-wsj-reports-temporary-taco-on-trying-to-force-open-strait-of-hormuz.html

Larry Johnson discusses Boots on the Ground scenario

https://www.youtube.com/live/BSezLaNm8xY?si=gAEYlVBtYW8C-jm8

Larry Johnson update on Trump and Middle East

https://sonar21.com/a-baron-of-lies-turns-the-world-upside-down-and-loses/

Daily report from Yves Smith on Iran war

long war ahead https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/03/iran-war-more-signs-of-a-long-conflict-and-resulting-severe-economic-damage.html

Update from Alastair Crooke

https://www.unz.com/acrooke/irans-audacious-strategic-moves-declared-missile-dominance-over-the-occupied-territories-a-warning-of-nuclear-deterrence/ https://www.youtube.com/live/VzfqtjAIkJA?si=wFDqehMENTaZmQOa

Daily summary of Iran war from Yves Smith

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/03/iran-war-more-escalation-us-strikes-iran-steel-plants-israel-sends-third-missile-at-iran-nuclear-plant-yemen-joins-war.html

Alastair Crooke update

https://www.youtube.com/live/Cg_IFXiCNLM?si=fQpf-8rqXDpBDSrN https://www.youtube.com/live/hyDn1OPqvTk?si=KMaNuF-l92KYWDtO with Kevork Almassian of Syrianaanalysis