Free Republic

Iran is a theology. It is no longer a country. Not in the way diplomats mean the word. Not in the bureaucratic sense that produces signatures, ministries, chains of command, and solemn communiques printed on heavy paper before disappearing into filing cabinets. What remains of Iran is something stranger: a prayer house where the faithful still answer a call no one can command. MAGA still behaves as though there’s a political switchboard secreted in Tehran, even after six destructive months of war. They imagine some paneled room where a weary official picks up the telephone, listens gravely, and relays instructions...

PARIS—All bets on world peace slid off the table when Louis XV opened the École Militaire.Nearly three centuries of belligerences later, and with more than $200 billion of Western cash gambled on Ukraine beating Russia, the military academy that once trained Napoleon last week assembled 100 military, political, finance, academic, and business leaders with intimate knowledge of the war to privately game out what happens next.Before long, amid steely glances and chattering wine glasses, you’ll hear the anguished and morally obtuse story on the four lethal conflicts taking place in Ukraine: diplomatic, military, economic, and information.