What's been made clear again the last couple of days, is that it is a priority for Iran to go through the proper diplomatic channels before resorting to military means. Even if it is likely to get them nowhere (I.e. holding off on retaliation for the promise of a ceasefire).

They want to convey that they are rational and principled when they commit to violence. They give a heads-up precisely because it won't stop a retaliation. They don't want an all-out war but they have to respond.

The primary audience doesn't even have to be Israel and the US, but also the rest of the world: Iran is better because it has justice on it side. Iran holds itself to a higher standard and acts accordingly.

I keep hearing (in Western media) that Russia doesn't have enough reserves to take Kharkiv. I guess we'll find out if that's cope, or if Russia is just trying to spread the Ukrainians out, especially in light of new ammunition deliveries from the US. Spreading the front will make it harder for Ukraine to use that ammunition to concentrate firepower and create tactical advantages.

I will say it is funny to me how typically Dutch it is to take offence to something like not having to answer a question because it might be a sensitive topic.

Yeah, I'm not going to pretend to know the daily reality of companies in China but we do have something similar in my country for companies with over 50 employees and I wouldn't say it is that significant in terms of workplace democracy. The least charitable reading would be that China is doing something similar but a bit broader.

Still all good things, but to pretend that this is basically China pressing the communism button is silly.

With all the things going on in the middle-east, a mostly defeated IS finds the time to attack Russia and Iran? If IS is not a US-op there is at least enough ideological overlap to work together.

There have most likely always been connections there. But imo the incentives for how to use IS changed once it became clear Iran and Russia where the big winners in the war against ISIS.

It's going to be wild if a NATO ship gets downed by a bunch of cheap drones and missiles. For now it seems like Yemen has been sure not to overwhelm US defences with drones. But it's going to be interesting to see what their gameplan is.

Even just sinking one navy ship would be such a tremendous blow to the US that the response would have to be huge. They would have to pull back their ships if they don't want to risk losing more. That would look so fucking bad.

So then the response would have to come through Saudi Arabia in the form of a massive bombing campaign. But give how much of a disaster the Saudi intervention has been in the past, they would have to do more than just bomb Yemen if they want to secure sea routes again. There's no way that this doesn't turn into a massive headache unless Ansar Allah backs off.

But if they're not even entertaining talking to the US, that seems far off. Either way, the ability of the Yemeni peoples to take suffering commands deep respect. Damaging directly those countries that have facilitated one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent history could motivate them to take a lot more damage.

They can sorta do it by just destroying NATO from within. The US doesn't have to unilaterally withdraw, it just has to create doubts about its actual commitment.

Obama could never.

You're telling me that a constitution is not, by definition, an ideological document?

I don't understand how you can live in this world where you recognise that the parties and people that make up the state apparatus are ideological but the state itself is not. There's no magical step where the functioning of these explicitly ideological people somehow becomes non-ideoligical. Believing otherwise is itself an ideological position, namely a liberal one.

Just because different lib parties have disagreements doesn't mean they aren't liberal. Almost without exception they 'recognise Isreal's right to defend itself'. They all implicitly, if not explicitly, support a settler-colonial apartheid state. And what would be more fitting than liberals supporting such a state? When it was liberal thinkers like Locke who's theory served to justify the British settler-colonial project in the Americas.

Countries that say they are liberal democracies can't figure out whether they are liberals or not?

Probably because they don't really give a shit about Haiti either way.

When it's the US/West doing something there's all this room for 'nuance' but when it is Bad Country it's suddenly clear-cut good vs evil.