Tag: history

Split image evoking 1953 Tehran and 2026 missile strikes over Iran, with declassified document text bleeding across both halves.

The Monster They Made (Part 1)

The coup did not sow the seeds for the Islamic Revolution. It constructed the machinery. SAVAK liquidated every secular democrat who might have led a modern Iran. The mosque was left standing because it was the one institution the secret police found too difficult to penetrate. Every morning the Australian media tells us the bombing is regrettable but the regime is monstrous. It does not explain who built the regime.

Shuttered shopfronts in a Middle Eastern bazaar at dusk with scattered leaflets on wet cobblestones and distant fire glow through tear gas haze.

The Arson Investigator: How Western sanctions built Iran’s bonfire; and now, the firebugs demand to lead the rescue

Every empire tells itself its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate. Edward Said wrote that about Iraq. It reads as though written yesterday, about Iran. New two-part series from Urban Wronski examining how Western sanctions engineered Iran’s economic collapse — and why the same powers now present themselves as liberators. Part 1: The Arson Investigator.

The US’s Multi‑Front War: A House of Cards

President Trump’s “Caracas raid,” enabled by the mysterious “Discombobulator,” epitomized a “Butch Cassidy” approach to international relations: a quick smash-and-grab to seize vital resources. Yet, as the rusty reality of Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure and a $200 billion repair bill quickly proved, the high-tech crowbar of the Discombobulator couldn’t fix what decades of neglect and sanctions had broken. Now, as a similar high-stakes gambit unfolds in the Persian Gulf against Iran, leaders like Brazil’s Lula caution against the “terrorism on an industrial scale” that comes with mistaking a tactical victory for a sustainable policy.

AUKUS Caucus

Australia has built a $368 billion cargo cult and called it strategy. The AUKUS Caucus offers money, bases and sovereignty in exchange for submarines that do not exist, built by shipyards that cannot deliver, on timelines that belong to fantasy. The only thing arriving on schedule is the bill.