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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
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- Scott Pelley and the End of the Network-News Tradition
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- NYT: ‘Why Does No One Care About the World Cup This Year?’
- Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists
- Autumn Gold: Secrecy, Time, and the Recovery of Truth
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- The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility
- Carl von Clausewitz: An Intellectual Biography
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- The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth
- Richard B. Spencer: The Man Who Branded the Alt-Right
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* American Epistemics (1-19-26)
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* If Tatiana Schlossberg were “Tatiana Smith” (12-30-25)
* ‘I’m So Trained’: How The Credential Society Burned Down the Palisades (12-28-25)
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Category Archives: Iran
Zineba Riboua: Trump’s Middle East: Operation Epic Fury is the Logical Conclusion of Trump’s Foreign Policy
Zineb Riboua’s essay explains Trump’s strategy, legitimizes the war, and frames it as structural rather than impulsive. Her biggest move it makes is rehabilitating Trump as a coherent actor rather than a chaotic one. The foreign policy establishment tends to … Continue reading
Decoding Iran’s Gray Zone Strategy
The gray zone is the contested arena that sits between routine statecraft and open warfare. It is defined by a paradox: it is an area of intense competition where actors use every tool of national power to achieve strategic gains, … Continue reading
Decoding Michael Eisenstadt
Michael Eisenstadt is a technical military specialist inside the pro-Israel strategic policy ecosystem. He works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an institution that sits close to the Israel security perspective but speaks in the language of military … Continue reading
Tell Me How This Ends
JP Morgan on how Operation Epic Fury would end: “Resource risk will begin to outweigh increasingly marginal military gains and the conclusion to the conflict will come down to the three M’s : Munitions, Markets and Midterms.” That JPMorgan line … Continue reading
Reluctant Relief That Trump Is Bombing Iran Seeps Through Elite Commentary
You can see hints of it. It rarely appears as open approval. It leaks out in tone, framing, and what journalists choose to emphasize. One signal is the grudging competence frame. Analysts who strongly dislike Trump will write things like … Continue reading
MSM Symmetry In Iran Coverage
Most national security reporters sit inside the same information ecosystem as the officials they cover. Their sources are Pentagon officers, intelligence briefers, congressional staff, and think tank analysts. When a crisis hits, those relationships become the primary pipeline of information. … Continue reading
Decoding The Iran War (3-8-26)
01:00 Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (2025), https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=17456111:20 Vali Nasr Exclusive: ‘War is being waged ‘: Vali Nasr on Israel-US campaign against Iran25:00 The First Gulf War, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=17460528:00 Understanding The Elite Frame On The Iran War, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=17462535:00 Mark Halperin: … Continue reading
Why Different Groups View The Iran War Differently
The foreign policy establishment, often called the blob, operates with a buffered identity. These planners and analysts view the world as a system of manageable, secular states that respond to rational incentives. To a buffered mind, the threat from Iran … Continue reading
You Don’t Win Wars Through Logic & Rhetoric
The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 for reasons that had little to do with weapons of mass destruction. The weapons argument was a tool of mobilization, a pretext chosen because it could unite a domestic coalition, satisfy the requirements … Continue reading
Richard Haass: ‘America chose this war — and must now choose how to end it’
Richard Haass is speaking from the core of the American foreign policy establishment. His essay is less about Iran than about defending the worldview of the professional diplomatic class. Now think about David Pinsof’s argument that most public reasoning is … Continue reading