One of my female friends has labelled herself as "agender" precisely because women throughout her life have not accepted that she does not conform to traditional expressions of feminity - m… (View Post)

I don't think that's necessarily true. The Iranian protests in 2009 saw about 12,000 murders to put them down. I think the regime has passed the point of maximum danger. The protests have l… (View Post)

A lot of being PM is precisely that - good presentation. Ideally you're the front man for a talented Cabinet that knows what it's doing policy wise, and the job of PM is to be the figure he… (View Post)

It's the same with Russia. We're obsessed with the idea of coming to a compromise settlement. These adversaries do not recognise compromise. (View Post)

The one counterfactual is in Afghanistan, where airstrikes allowed the Northern Coalition to push the Taliban out of Kabul (at least for nearly two decades, anyway). The Kurds in western Iran have so… (View Post)