"War has instead done what it usually does: empowered the powerful, rallied the faithful, and allowed an apparatus of repression to present its imperatives in terms of national security," writes Secot. "Trump, of course, is as indifferent to the fate of Iran's civilians as he is ignorant of their circumstances. But there is still one gesture he could make, in service not of the Iranian political opposition per se but of the forgotten cause of human decency, toward a population protected neither by its own regime nor by anyone else. The next time he shoots for the deal of the century, he could add to his list of pie-in-the-sky demands a few that would cost him and the Islamic Republic next to nothing: the release of those arbitrarily detained, an end to political executions, and a respectful burial for the dead."

Agreed on how the mag leans, Coriolanus. That in mind, some good writing/interesting perspectives. This piece, for instance, makes it clear why Iranians would feel deeply and badly played by Trump/Netanyahu.

"You talk about regime change," Trump said at the G7 meeting yesterday. "I never cared about regime change. It [was] never a part."

Tell that to the Iranians who were desperately incautious enough to actually lay their bone spurs aside, take heart from your incitement and rebel against the regime.

Well, actually, you probably can't- so many of them are dead, lying in mass graves, testimony to the idea that anything and everything you bump into turns to sh#te.

#5 Is there a link to the piece?

Sorry, Coriolanus, fog at my end: I meant the Oslo Accords OP you mentioned.

On the links you sent, I've no doubt intel networks - both imagined and real - got reeled in fast by the Iranians. Any Iranian inside Iran who lets out a peep is going to be (and is) labeled an agent of a US/Israeli alliance the regime just defeated.

Thanks, Coriolanus. Those accords seemed to offer something quite different ... then Rabin was killed in a truly consequential assassination by a guy who'd fit in well within Netanyahu's cabinet.