don't you have to like, be born into zoroastrianism to be considered a real member of the faith? Though I guess there may not be much of a hierarchy left to enforce such things
That's probably the Yazidis you're thinking of. They were in the news for also getting explicitly targeted by the Islamic State.
Conservative Zoroastrians (who represent the bulk of the community) don't allow conversion and many reject anyone with a non-Zoroastrian parent (some say it's okay as long as your father was Zoroastrian).
But this seems to be based more on tradition than any actual religious reason. And with the decline in the Zoroastrian population, some have adopted a more reformist position.
don't you have to like, be born into zoroastrianism to be considered a real member of the faith? Though I guess there may not be much of a hierarchy left to enforce such things
That's probably the Yazidis you're thinking of. They were in the news for also getting explicitly targeted by the Islamic State.
Conservative Zoroastrians (who represent the bulk of the community) don't allow conversion and many reject anyone with a non-Zoroastrian parent (some say it's okay as long as your father was Zoroastrian).
But this seems to be based more on tradition than any actual religious reason. And with the decline in the Zoroastrian population, some have adopted a more reformist position.
As with any other religious rule, it's arbitrary and ubenforcable anyhow so you'll just get another sect if the existing ones get upset about it.
In "I never would've predicted this but I guess it makes sense after it's explained to me" Iraqi Kurds are converting to Zoroastrianism in unspecified but apparently large numbers. I saw numbers of up to 100,000 recent converts, though that's likely an exaggeration (that would nearly double the number of Zoroastrians estimated to exist in the entire world). Nonstop attacks by the Islamic State for years, despite most Kurds being Muslims for centuries, has started making a lot of people disillusioned with Islam, and Kurds are known for being welcoming to people of different religions and ethnicities, so why not this very ancient and now very fringe faith? If you're going to be a heretic anyway, just lean into it and go full heretic.
I don't know if this is going to have any influence on anything in the future, just something I had seen.
Zoroastrians get the best cars.
Explanation:
Mazda is named after Ahura Mazda, chief god of the zoroastrians.
don't you have to like, be born into zoroastrianism to be considered a real member of the faith? Though I guess there may not be much of a hierarchy left to enforce such things
That's probably the Yazidis you're thinking of. They were in the news for also getting explicitly targeted by the Islamic State.
Conservative Zoroastrians (who represent the bulk of the community) don't allow conversion and many reject anyone with a non-Zoroastrian parent (some say it's okay as long as your father was Zoroastrian).
But this seems to be based more on tradition than any actual religious reason. And with the decline in the Zoroastrian population, some have adopted a more reformist position.
This came about as a compromise that was more specific to the Zoroastrians in India to avoid persecution from authorities rather than being an actual tenet of faith IIRC (as opposed to, say, Yazidis, who have a caste sysyem and literally beleive conversion from an individual not born into a caste is impossible.)
Yeah, to really understand you have to understand that Zoroastrianism was basically the state religion of Iran for about a thousand years. When the Caliphates took over Sassanid Persia they were afraid that Zoroastrianism would be an excuse for the Iranians/Persians to maintain a national identity rebel (and with good reason). So they basically stomped it out pretty hard. The remnants fled to India, but there were still Islamic rulers in parts of India and India itself was undergoing religious strife, so the deal basically ended up being that they would be allowed to stay but that evangelism was forbidden. Historically though Zoroastrianism had definitely had evangelical elements, though it was mostly aimed at converting subjects of the various Persian empires (for example, Zoroastrianism had a LOT of influence on Judaism in the second temple era and by extension early Christianity. There was also significant penetration of Zoroastrian sects and branches into the Roman empire pre-Christianity. )
Of course Iran was never really pacified, but Shia Islam ended up becoming a sort of Zoroastrianism lite national religion replacement that the Iranian people ended up rallying around instead (and early Shia proponents played up similarities and syncretic Zoroastrian elements a lot to intentionally encourage Iranians to think of it as “their” religion like Zoroastrianism was).
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
As of today, the Iraq War is old enough to enlist in the Iraq War.
18 years ago today Bush declared we were going to Iraq, starting a whole lot of shit.
I was in my senior year of high school, and got to class a bit early to find the teacher watching the news and learning right then we were suddenly at war. And I got to learn it right alongside him. The teacher nextdoor was apparently watching the news so he came over to talk to my teacher about it. The three of us stepped outside, having a collective "what the fuck," and we hear a pretty fast approaching rapid thump sound. Five or seven (I forget how many) helicopters, troop carriers, fly over us in perfect v-formation. Like we could see the feet dangling out of the many open doors. It was the most surreal shit I'd ever seen in my life. The nextdoor teacher didn't mince words and said "this shit is real." Meanwhile I was thanking my teacher for talking me out of enlisting in the fucking US Marine Corps, something I was dangerously close to completing back in January when I turned 18.
So anyway.
Anyone wanna do a fucking retrospective of THAT hot mess?
As of today, the Iraq War is old enough to enlist in the Iraq War.
18 years ago today Bush declared we were going to Iraq, starting a whole lot of shit.
I was in my senior year of high school, and got to class a bit early to find the teacher watching the news and learning right then we were suddenly at war. And I got to learn it right alongside him. The teacher nextdoor was apparently watching the news so he came over to talk to my teacher about it. The three of us stepped outside, having a collective "what the fuck," and we hear a pretty fast approaching rapid thump sound. Five or seven (I forget how many) helicopters, troop carriers, fly over us in perfect v-formation. Like we could see the feet dangling out of the many open doors. It was the most surreal shit I'd ever seen in my life. The nextdoor teacher didn't mince words and said "this shit is real." Meanwhile I was thanking my teacher for talking me out of enlisting in the fucking US Marine Corps, something I was dangerously close to completing back in January when I turned 18.
So anyway.
Anyone wanna do a fucking retrospective of THAT hot mess?
Not really, no. I had a similar experience in High School. I knew before even the invasion of Afganistan that shit was going to be a clusterfuck, it didn't take a genius to see that. Anybody who paid the least bit of attention could see we didn't have a plan or exit strategy for either war. So very glad I also stayed out of the army. My cousin, on the other hand, has 5 or something tours of duty over there. Poor bastard.
As of today, the Iraq War is old enough to enlist in the Iraq War.
18 years ago today Bush declared we were going to Iraq, starting a whole lot of shit.
I was in my senior year of high school, and got to class a bit early to find the teacher watching the news and learning right then we were suddenly at war. And I got to learn it right alongside him. The teacher nextdoor was apparently watching the news so he came over to talk to my teacher about it. The three of us stepped outside, having a collective "what the fuck," and we hear a pretty fast approaching rapid thump sound. Five or seven (I forget how many) helicopters, troop carriers, fly over us in perfect v-formation. Like we could see the feet dangling out of the many open doors. It was the most surreal shit I'd ever seen in my life. The nextdoor teacher didn't mince words and said "this shit is real." Meanwhile I was thanking my teacher for talking me out of enlisting in the fucking US Marine Corps, something I was dangerously close to completing back in January when I turned 18.
So anyway.
Anyone wanna do a fucking retrospective of THAT hot mess?
Well, in August of 2001 I was hanging out with the Marine recruiter being told I should join in a combat position and with my ASVAB score go grunt to officer (I forget what they called it) because it was better than ROTC. Dad told me go to college, see how it goes, and if I still wanted to serve look at ROTC then.
I listened to dad and my second Tuesday morning came back from a chem lab and...dad was right? I think? If I had gone Marines instead I would have been in a class walking off the bus at Parris Island around 8 AM the morning of 9/11/2001.
When Iraq was going on I thought dad was too much of a dove. Turns out going through high school dreading your number coming up for Vietnam has an impact.
My old man did a tour in Vietnam and he was super pissed about Iraq and Afghanistan. If I had passed my physical, I would have been just coming out around 9/11. Who knows what would have happened then.
France 24 Arabic was running a marathon of interviews with Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, and I thought that was sweet but then I realized it was because she passed away today. RIP.
Now now, to be fair, Iraq did have a large stockpile of Chemical Weapons.
That were left over from the Iran-Iraq war that the US probably helped them manufacture either directly or indirectly.
Whoops.
And they were located and destroyed after the Persian Gulf War.
Yeah, by 2003 there weren't any chemical weapons in Iraq.
That was the thing that really surprised me - I think after all the work and searching that was done in Iraq, the closest they came to finding chemical weapons were some old chemical mortar shells that were disposed of but improperly? Like, not even a usable shell casing or lost barrel of something tucked in the back of a warehouse or an anthrax sample in an academic lab somewhere.
Even if you ignore the bullshit 'mobile chemical weapon factories' and all that propaganda the Bush administration made from whole cloth, it seems like it would be reasonable to expect that Iraq would have some military program somewhere working on something. I just take it as a given that any reasonable sized military has some stuff going on off the books, and Iraq under Saddam certainly seemed like the kind of place that would have something or other.
I'm not saying that even if they had it would have justified the invasion, but that there was a complete absence of anything that could have been used by Bush supporters to say 'see, he had chemical weapons' no matter how tenuous is pretty surprising.
Now now, to be fair, Iraq did have a large stockpile of Chemical Weapons.
That were left over from the Iran-Iraq war that the US probably helped them manufacture either directly or indirectly.
Whoops.
And they were located and destroyed after the Persian Gulf War.
Apparently there we still some in the country. Buried away and poorly stored, but there. I doubt the Iraqi government knew about them, they probably got lost in the hurry to hide what they could post 1991. They also buried tons of conventional weapons like tanks and planes when it was clear the US and her allies controlled the skies and would destroy them.
Now now, to be fair, Iraq did have a large stockpile of Chemical Weapons.
That were left over from the Iran-Iraq war that the US probably helped them manufacture either directly or indirectly.
Whoops.
And they were located and destroyed after the Persian Gulf War.
Yeah, by 2003 there weren't any chemical weapons in Iraq.
That was the thing that really surprised me - I think after all the work and searching that was done in Iraq, the closest they came to finding chemical weapons were some old chemical mortar shells that were disposed of but improperly? Like, not even a usable shell casing or lost barrel of something tucked in the back of a warehouse or an anthrax sample in an academic lab somewhere.
Even if you ignore the bullshit 'mobile chemical weapon factories' and all that propaganda the Bush administration made from whole cloth, it seems like it would be reasonable to expect that Iraq would have some military program somewhere working on something. I just take it as a given that any reasonable sized military has some stuff going on off the books, and Iraq under Saddam certainly seemed like the kind of place that would have something or other.
I'm not saying that even if they had it would have justified the invasion, but that there was a complete absence of anything that could have been used by Bush supporters to say 'see, he had chemical weapons' no matter how tenuous is pretty surprising.
I mean they went in on purposefully manufactured bullshit, why would they be surprised that they didn't find anything? Colin Powell has publicly admitted they never expected to find anything. American war criminals are always so cavalier about admitting to things, because it's not as though they'll ever face consequences.
I think it was Frontline that did the Iraq War breakdown? The amount of stupid ideas and decisions coupled with the Christian crusade aspect pretty much guaranteed a failure. Aside from their being no such thing as a victory condition, that is.
As we last left Israeli politics, Benny Gantz, leader of the opposition opposed to Netenyahu, agreed to a power sharing agreement that made Netanyahu Prime Minister for some bizarre reason. In theory this was supposed to lead to Gantz becoming prime minister himself after a term, but in a stunning betrayal obvious to anyone but Benny Gantz, Netenyahu collapsed his own government intentionally and triggered elections rather than honor the agreement, making Gantz look like a giant sucker in progress.
So with Netanyahu's main opponent eliminated from credibility and the only opposition being a motley group of parties whose only real common thread was that they hate Netanyahu and want him out, surely this would lead to Netanyahu's Likud party rolling over the elections and securing his place as Prime Minister and person not in prison for corruption?
NO!
Likud fails to take a majority, even with any obvious potential coalition parties. There is one small right wing party that could put him over the line and has not ruled out joining his coalition... But it's an Islamist Arab Nationalist party. So...
So what happens next? Someone from the opposition crosses over to become the next sucker unity coalition member? Another round of inconclusive elections? Some kind of bizzare Likud-Islamist alliance? Stay tuned...
How much room does Bibi have to make a deal with the Islamists? It's pretty clear he'll do whatever he has to to escape prosecution.
From my reading no one is 100% sure.
He would need them to get to 61 but the anti-Bibi parties would also need them I think. Though the anti-Bibi parties I think are sitting at a higher starting point but are more disparate so harder to reign in and would need the Joint List and other Arab parties to win.
But at this point Bibi is like a cockroach. He will be messing with shit till he is deep in prison or dead.
I am also edging on round 5 with probably no outcome.
If the election was 3 months ago I think Bibi would have been dead in the water due to COVID but since then they have had one of the best vaccine programs in the world for the Jewish population keeping him around.
How much room does Bibi have to make a deal with the Islamists? It's pretty clear he'll do whatever he has to to escape prosecution.
“Ok guys, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I’ve made a deal with the Islamists and I’m going to be prime minister and not go to prison. The bad news is that we all need to start taking off Fridays instead of Saturdays from now on.”
Jealous Deva on
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
I just realized we can totally talk about that boat stuck in the Suez Canal in here.
But also because of the canal being blocked Syria is already having to ration fuel so, heads up on all sorts of exploding downstream effects just like the last time Syria had shortages. (I am referring to the last several years.)
Can anyone recommend a good rundown of the current situation in Syria? I have honestly lost track after all the Russia, Turkey, Kurdish and US goings on in the country.
Can anyone recommend a good rundown of the current situation in Syria? I have honestly lost track after all the Russia, Turkey, Kurdish and US goings on in the country.
The short version is that 2021 may be the overall worst year, even if the amount of fighting is lessened outside of Idlib.
There are so few resources and so little economy left that mass starvation is a real threat. There is no real state anymore, instead the country is divided into regime loyal warlords who rule through force, corruption and theft.
There is no rebuilding effort either.
Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
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Indie Winterdie KräheRudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered Userregular
edited April 2021
apparently there was a planned coup in Jordan that got busted before it had the chance to happen
The arrests of other officials were reported by Jordanian news outlets. Among them was Sharif Hasan, who also is a member of the royal family, and Bassem Awadullah, a former senior official in Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court.
Maybe a bit of both? It looks like a fairly popular member of the royal family who has been pushed out of the line of succession had been connecting with powerful people who might not be the happiest with the current administration but (from my admittedly fairly cursory research) it doesn't seem like there was an imminent military coup about to happen or anything.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
In the Middle East, conspiracy is like oxygen and everyone breathes it. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia have a huge stake in Jordan’s stability. Conspiratorial rumors may be titillating but don’t reflect reality. Israeli/ Saudi leaders would not authorize anything against the King.
Dennis Ross, US' middle east envoy in the 90s, continuing the old tradition of belittling middle easterners because apparently they live in the land of conspiracy theories. An American, in this day and age, still getting smug about conspiracy theories is something to see. Go outside, Dennis.
This is one of the craziest things I've seen happen on a live broadcast. Some background: before the Sudanese revolution that ousted al Bashir, Russia and Sudan came to an agreement allowing Russia to build a naval base on the Sudanese shore of the Red Sea. The Sudanese military, which is not exactly out of power, is continuing with their plans for the base. Sudanese journalist Ahmed Ali Abdelgadir went on Channel 9 (Arabic language Turkish channel) to talk about the situation, the Sudanese military's attempts to balance cozying up to Russia while improving their relationship with the US, and Russia's plans in the Sudan. And got arrested live on TV, 5 minutes into his interview. The Turkish anchor reports on the arrest as it happens.
APNewsAlert: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (@AP) _ #Iran's state-run IRNA news agency, citing negotiator, says Tehran will start enriching uranium to 60% purity
Following the attack on Natanz, Iran will start enriching uranium up to 60%, similarly to how they started going to 20% after the assassination of Fakhrizadeh. I’d say the rhetoric has been even more harsh than before.
This is one of the craziest things I've seen happen on a live broadcast. Some background: before the Sudanese revolution that ousted al Bashir, Russia and Sudan came to an agreement allowing Russia to build a naval base on the Sudanese shore of the Red Sea. The Sudanese military, which is not exactly out of power, is continuing with their plans for the base. Sudanese journalist Ahmed Ali Abdelgadir went on Channel 9 (Arabic language Turkish channel) to talk about the situation, the Sudanese military's attempts to balance cozying up to Russia while improving their relationship with the US, and Russia's plans in the Sudan. And got arrested live on TV, 5 minutes into his interview. The Turkish anchor reports on the arrest as it happens.
This is one of the craziest things I've seen happen on a live broadcast. Some background: before the Sudanese revolution that ousted al Bashir, Russia and Sudan came to an agreement allowing Russia to build a naval base on the Sudanese shore of the Red Sea. The Sudanese military, which is not exactly out of power, is continuing with their plans for the base. Sudanese journalist Ahmed Ali Abdelgadir went on Channel 9 (Arabic language Turkish channel) to talk about the situation, the Sudanese military's attempts to balance cozying up to Russia while improving their relationship with the US, and Russia's plans in the Sudan. And got arrested live on TV, 5 minutes into his interview. The Turkish anchor reports on the arrest as it happens.
“This is the immediate, practical reality that our policy review discovered,” said one person familiar with the closed-door deliberations who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy planning. “If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest.”
The goal is to move to “zero” troops by September, the senior administration official said. “This is not conditions-based. The president has judged that a conditions-based approach . . . is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever. He has reached the conclusion that the United States will complete its drawdown and will remove its forces from Afghanistan before September 11th.”
Always feel weird about this subject. Feels wrong to just fuck off after breaking everything, but not sure we(/the people who would continue making the choices) could do any better staying.
“This is the immediate, practical reality that our policy review discovered,” said one person familiar with the closed-door deliberations who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy planning. “If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest.”
The goal is to move to “zero” troops by September, the senior administration official said. “This is not conditions-based. The president has judged that a conditions-based approach . . . is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever. He has reached the conclusion that the United States will complete its drawdown and will remove its forces from Afghanistan before September 11th.”
Always feel weird about this subject. Feels wrong to just fuck off after breaking everything, but not sure we(/the people who would continue making the choices) could do any better staying.
Kind a feels like a ball player retiring on goal 498 though, like 2 more months and it can be a full 20 years of futility.
“This is the immediate, practical reality that our policy review discovered,” said one person familiar with the closed-door deliberations who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy planning. “If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest.”
The goal is to move to “zero” troops by September, the senior administration official said. “This is not conditions-based. The president has judged that a conditions-based approach . . . is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever. He has reached the conclusion that the United States will complete its drawdown and will remove its forces from Afghanistan before September 11th.”
Always feel weird about this subject. Feels wrong to just fuck off after breaking everything, but not sure we(/the people who would continue making the choices) could do any better staying.
The best thing we could do right not is to try to get as many of our allies in the country out if possible. Maybe work out an agreement with the new government that we will provide aid as long as they dont go crazy with reprisals and oppression?
Posts
Conservative Zoroastrians (who represent the bulk of the community) don't allow conversion and many reject anyone with a non-Zoroastrian parent (some say it's okay as long as your father was Zoroastrian).
But this seems to be based more on tradition than any actual religious reason. And with the decline in the Zoroastrian population, some have adopted a more reformist position.
As with any other religious rule, it's arbitrary and ubenforcable anyhow so you'll just get another sect if the existing ones get upset about it.
Zoroastrians get the best cars.
Explanation:
This came about as a compromise that was more specific to the Zoroastrians in India to avoid persecution from authorities rather than being an actual tenet of faith IIRC (as opposed to, say, Yazidis, who have a caste sysyem and literally beleive conversion from an individual not born into a caste is impossible.)
Or was this done in yee olde times?
Roughly the seventh century.
Of course Iran was never really pacified, but Shia Islam ended up becoming a sort of Zoroastrianism lite national religion replacement that the Iranian people ended up rallying around instead (and early Shia proponents played up similarities and syncretic Zoroastrian elements a lot to intentionally encourage Iranians to think of it as “their” religion like Zoroastrianism was).
18 years ago today Bush declared we were going to Iraq, starting a whole lot of shit.
I was in my senior year of high school, and got to class a bit early to find the teacher watching the news and learning right then we were suddenly at war. And I got to learn it right alongside him. The teacher nextdoor was apparently watching the news so he came over to talk to my teacher about it. The three of us stepped outside, having a collective "what the fuck," and we hear a pretty fast approaching rapid thump sound. Five or seven (I forget how many) helicopters, troop carriers, fly over us in perfect v-formation. Like we could see the feet dangling out of the many open doors. It was the most surreal shit I'd ever seen in my life. The nextdoor teacher didn't mince words and said "this shit is real." Meanwhile I was thanking my teacher for talking me out of enlisting in the fucking US Marine Corps, something I was dangerously close to completing back in January when I turned 18.
So anyway.
Anyone wanna do a fucking retrospective of THAT hot mess?
Not really, no. I had a similar experience in High School. I knew before even the invasion of Afganistan that shit was going to be a clusterfuck, it didn't take a genius to see that. Anybody who paid the least bit of attention could see we didn't have a plan or exit strategy for either war. So very glad I also stayed out of the army. My cousin, on the other hand, has 5 or something tours of duty over there. Poor bastard.
Well, in August of 2001 I was hanging out with the Marine recruiter being told I should join in a combat position and with my ASVAB score go grunt to officer (I forget what they called it) because it was better than ROTC. Dad told me go to college, see how it goes, and if I still wanted to serve look at ROTC then.
I listened to dad and my second Tuesday morning came back from a chem lab and...dad was right? I think? If I had gone Marines instead I would have been in a class walking off the bus at Parris Island around 8 AM the morning of 9/11/2001.
When Iraq was going on I thought dad was too much of a dove. Turns out going through high school dreading your number coming up for Vietnam has an impact.
The Onion on March 26, 2003: Point/Counterpoint: This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t
People who were sane knew it was going to be a disaster. The American public was, on the whole, not sane.
/s
That were left over from the Iran-Iraq war that the US probably helped them manufacture either directly or indirectly.
Whoops.
And they were located and destroyed after the Persian Gulf War.
Yeah, by 2003 there weren't any chemical weapons in Iraq.
That was the thing that really surprised me - I think after all the work and searching that was done in Iraq, the closest they came to finding chemical weapons were some old chemical mortar shells that were disposed of but improperly? Like, not even a usable shell casing or lost barrel of something tucked in the back of a warehouse or an anthrax sample in an academic lab somewhere.
Even if you ignore the bullshit 'mobile chemical weapon factories' and all that propaganda the Bush administration made from whole cloth, it seems like it would be reasonable to expect that Iraq would have some military program somewhere working on something. I just take it as a given that any reasonable sized military has some stuff going on off the books, and Iraq under Saddam certainly seemed like the kind of place that would have something or other.
I'm not saying that even if they had it would have justified the invasion, but that there was a complete absence of anything that could have been used by Bush supporters to say 'see, he had chemical weapons' no matter how tenuous is pretty surprising.
Apparently there we still some in the country. Buried away and poorly stored, but there. I doubt the Iraqi government knew about them, they probably got lost in the hurry to hide what they could post 1991. They also buried tons of conventional weapons like tanks and planes when it was clear the US and her allies controlled the skies and would destroy them.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html
I mean they went in on purposefully manufactured bullshit, why would they be surprised that they didn't find anything? Colin Powell has publicly admitted they never expected to find anything. American war criminals are always so cavalier about admitting to things, because it's not as though they'll ever face consequences.
So, Isreal had another election...
As we last left Israeli politics, Benny Gantz, leader of the opposition opposed to Netenyahu, agreed to a power sharing agreement that made Netanyahu Prime Minister for some bizarre reason. In theory this was supposed to lead to Gantz becoming prime minister himself after a term, but in a stunning betrayal obvious to anyone but Benny Gantz, Netenyahu collapsed his own government intentionally and triggered elections rather than honor the agreement, making Gantz look like a giant sucker in progress.
So with Netanyahu's main opponent eliminated from credibility and the only opposition being a motley group of parties whose only real common thread was that they hate Netanyahu and want him out, surely this would lead to Netanyahu's Likud party rolling over the elections and securing his place as Prime Minister and person not in prison for corruption?
NO!
Likud fails to take a majority, even with any obvious potential coalition parties. There is one small right wing party that could put him over the line and has not ruled out joining his coalition... But it's an Islamist Arab Nationalist party. So...
So what happens next? Someone from the opposition crosses over to become the next sucker unity coalition member? Another round of inconclusive elections? Some kind of bizzare Likud-Islamist alliance? Stay tuned...
From my reading no one is 100% sure.
He would need them to get to 61 but the anti-Bibi parties would also need them I think. Though the anti-Bibi parties I think are sitting at a higher starting point but are more disparate so harder to reign in and would need the Joint List and other Arab parties to win.
But at this point Bibi is like a cockroach. He will be messing with shit till he is deep in prison or dead.
I am also edging on round 5 with probably no outcome.
If the election was 3 months ago I think Bibi would have been dead in the water due to COVID but since then they have had one of the best vaccine programs in the world for the Jewish population keeping him around.
“Ok guys, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I’ve made a deal with the Islamists and I’m going to be prime minister and not go to prison. The bad news is that we all need to start taking off Fridays instead of Saturdays from now on.”
But also because of the canal being blocked Syria is already having to ration fuel so, heads up on all sorts of exploding downstream effects just like the last time Syria had shortages. (I am referring to the last several years.)
FP ran an article last week:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/19/syria-protests-civil-war-anniversary-assad/
The short version is that 2021 may be the overall worst year, even if the amount of fighting is lessened outside of Idlib.
There are so few resources and so little economy left that mass starvation is a real threat. There is no real state anymore, instead the country is divided into regime loyal warlords who rule through force, corruption and theft.
There is no rebuilding effort either.
Dennis Ross, US' middle east envoy in the 90s, continuing the old tradition of belittling middle easterners because apparently they live in the land of conspiracy theories. An American, in this day and age, still getting smug about conspiracy theories is something to see. Go outside, Dennis.
Following the attack on Natanz, Iran will start enriching uranium up to 60%, similarly to how they started going to 20% after the assassination of Fakhrizadeh. I’d say the rhetoric has been even more harsh than before.
I assume you mean Syria?
No, Sudan. It's going to be the first Russian Federation naval base in Africa.
Always feel weird about this subject. Feels wrong to just fuck off after breaking everything, but not sure we(/the people who would continue making the choices) could do any better staying.
Kind a feels like a ball player retiring on goal 498 though, like 2 more months and it can be a full 20 years of futility.
The best thing we could do right not is to try to get as many of our allies in the country out if possible. Maybe work out an agreement with the new government that we will provide aid as long as they dont go crazy with reprisals and oppression?
Who knows. Bush really fucked the region over.