A nostalgic left polemic like those of the 1970s

I wrote recently about one of the cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs conspiracist narratives that the Trumpista right has been channeling for years. It goes like this:

There was a group of German Jewish Marxist intellectuals known as the Frankfurt School who migrated to America after the Nazis took over Germany. (This is the only part of this conspiracy story that has some visible contact with reality.)

Then: The Frankfurt School’s Jewish commies begat “Cultural Marxism.” (There have been Marxists and political theorists of many other types who have written about culture. I can’t think of anyone who actually defined themselves as a “Cultural Marxist.” Maybe there was someone. But I think for the Trumpists, “cultural Marxism” is just another synonym for “Jews.”)

Next step: “Cultural Marxism” begat “political correctness” - a term normally used to refer to something the speaker thinks is politically incorrect. (Why, yes, it does often seem like rightwing clichés are some kind of random intrusions from another dimension. Why do you ask?)

Along the way it also begat “postmodernism” which is another form of political correctness. Or maybe it was postmodernism that begat political correctness? Which is strange enough since those are two very different ways of understanding the world. Conspiracist genealogies of ideas can get kind of murky.

Next step: Political Correctness begat critical race theory, aka, CRT. (The Trumpista faithful were happy with that, but it was kind of a fuzzy idea. It was sort of like DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion - which is also often used to mean “scary black people!” – and that may have pushed “CRT” out of their vocabulary, because I haven’t heard it in a while.

And finally: CRT begat Wokeism. That one seems to be functioning fine as a bogeyman among conservatives in the US and Europe who are apparently fans of Asleepism.

Maybe if they wake up from this phase they’ll forget about that particular kooky theory. But don’t count on it. It’s been around a while. Bill Berkowitz reported on it for the SPLC back in 2003:

“Cultural Marxism,” described as a conspiratorial attempt to wreck American culture and morality, is the newest intellectual bugaboo on the radical right. Surprisingly, there are signs that this bizarre theory is catching on in the mainstream. …

The theory holds that these self-interested Jews - the so-called “Frankfurt School” of philosophers - planned to try to convince mainstream Americans that white ethnic pride is bad, that sexual liberation is good, and that supposedly traditional American values — Christianity, “family values,” and so on - are reactionary and bigoted. With their core values thus subverted, the theory goes, Americans would be quick to sign on to the ideas of the far left.

The very term, “cultural Marxism,” is clearly intended to conjure up xenophobic anxieties. But can a theory like this, built on the words of long-dead intellectuals who have little discernible relevance to normal Americans’ lives, really fly? As bizarre as it might sound, there is some evidence that it may. Certainly, those who are pushing the theory seem to believe that it is an important one. (1)

I thought about this again when I came across a recent review article by Russell Jacoby, who actually has a reality-based expertise in this area, just published by the social-democratic site Jacobin. (2) It’s a review of a book that argues that “Western Marxism” – which actually is A Thing and includes the Frankfurt School’s “critical theory” trend, though Critical Theory includes thinkers that don’t necessarily consider themselves Marxists.

The book is by Gabriel Rickhill, Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? (2025). And, according to Jacoby, the book is a defense of the Soviet version of Marxism – which also evolved a lot over the existence of the USSR – against what Rickhill, sees as a deficient “Western Marxism.”

It sounds like a real walk down the leftie nostalgia lane! Jacoby isn’t impressed with Rockhill’s effort:

Its author, Gabriel Rockhill, draws a sharp contrast between the supposed virtues of Soviet-inspired Marxism and the supposed failings of the New Left’s leading intellectuals, notably those associated with the Frankfurt School. But he fails to deliver a fair criticism of his subjects. Rather, he resorts to innuendo and guilt by association in a bid to demolish their reputations. He might be viewed as a Marxist-Leninist in the school of Donald Trump: use any means to defame your foe. [my emphasis]

“Marxist-Leninist in the school of Donald Trump” is a bit too much of a reach for my limited brainpower!

He also gives this helpful brief definition of the term Western Marxism:

The phrase “Western Marxism” first emerged in the 1920s as an insult used by Soviet spokesmen who lambasted some European Marxists, accusing them of being too philosophical and too little invested in the ideas of Lenin and vanguard party–building. The term is a misleading one in as much as the line of demarcation does not denote geography but ideas. “Soviet Marxists” existed aplenty in the West, while dissident “Western Marxists” popped up in the Soviet Union itself.

Even during Marx’ lifetime, there were debates in the various socialist parties over what was the correct Marxist positions on politics, history, economics, etc. The pre-World War I Socialist International of socialist/social-democratic parties of various countries split after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 into a Communist International and a social-democratic Second International (called the Labour and Socialist International, LSI), who spent decades accusing each other of betraying the true Marxist cause.

There was a third group headed by Austria Social Democratic leader Friedrich Adler, called the International Working Union of Socialist Parties (IWUSP), also known as the Vienna Union and (mockingly) the Two-and-a-Half International. It included “the Independent Social Democrats in Germany (still a party of 340,000, even after the majority left for the Comintern), Britain’s Independent Labour Party, and most socialist parties in the Balkans.” (3) It also included the Austria Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) – which still exists, btw, and is currently the junior partner in the national government coalition headed by the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP). There was even a debate in the 1920s over the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which the SPÖ continued to advocate in a radical-democratic form different from that of the Soviet Union.

Jacoby goes on to give a helpful description of the meaning of “Western Marxism” and how the Frankfurt School relates to it. And makes some salty criticism of what appears to be downright hackery by Rickhill. I’m a bit surprised that Monthly Review Press would let some of this stuff from Rickhill get pass their editors. But I’ll have to admit I enjoyed Jacoby’s dissection of those bloopers.

Like I say, it’s like a nostalgic blast from the 1970s to read Jacoby’s article. And, not surprisingly in an article of seven pages or so covering a very broad subject, a lot of nuances inevitably get left on the digital cutting-room floor.

In pointing out one of the broad areas of his criticism, Jacoby comments: “What Maoism, a program of peasant insurgency, meant in urban New York or London was always a mystery, even while Mao was alive, but Rockhill cannot be bothered to explain it.”

Jacoby has been covering this turf for a while. He did a pamphlet back in 1976, when those now-long-ago ideological hairs were being enthusiastically split, on Stalin, Marxism-Leninism and the Left. (4) Essentially, he argued there that the seeming failure of the New Left of The Sixties “redoubled the attraction of the Chinese Revolution, and of a successful model of revolution in general. The left is in search of a successful theory of revolution and nothing seems more successful than Marxism-Leninism.” (Keep in mind, this was 1976, not 1999!)

Part of the Maoist ideology at that time was that it defended the images and ideas of Joseph Stalin. That had to do in large part with the Sino-Soviet split. The post-Stalin Soviet leadership denounced Stalin, so China was happy to take him as a symbol to denounce Soviet “revisionism.” (Those polemics over the true interpretation of Marxism didn’t end in the 1930s!) He argued there that what many Maoist fans outside of China saw in the image they had of Mao and the Chinese Revolution was a more flexible, even more “democratic and non-authoritarian manner” than what the USSR had done during the Stalin years.

Of course, today even the official Communist Chinese narratives would criticize at least the “excesses” of the Cultural Revolution. And presumably there are few historians now who would describe that period without reference to the large number of lives lost in both the political struggles and in the economic disruptions caused by the Cultural Revolution - and earlier by the Great Leap Forward.

The information about internal events in China was exceptionally limited for the public in most of the world in those pre-digital days, certainly compared to today. And left-leaning activists in the US and elsewhere had good reason to be skeptical of the claims their governments were making about the villainy and danger represented by peasants in Vietnam and China. Also, by the early 1970s, there was a major shift in US policy under Nixon and Kissinger toward treating China as less of an enemy. Which also meant that the US government and media were tending to promote a much more benign and less threatening image of “Red China.” Everyone in America to the left of the John Birch Society was trying to look on the bright side about China.

It was the “Nixon goes to China” moment.

Snapshot of Mao and Nixon meeting (from the Chinese CGTN)

The Nixon Presidential Library has a 45-minute documentary on the event. (5) This is a reminder than once upon a time, even Republican Presidents were actually capable of conducting competent diplomacy. Seems like a long time ago now, though.

Götz Aly, one of Germany’s leading historians, in a book of his on The Sixties in Germany, was critical of his contemporaries back then for not being more aware of the ugly sides of the Cultural Revolution period, citing some of the scholarly research available in Germany at the time about contemporary China. (6) But German New Left types of that time also had good reason to be skeptical of accounts that fit smoothly with Cold War official posturing by Western governments.

And it was not only people in 1965 or so that drew very different lessons from the experiences of Mao Zedong’s version of revolutionary theory. I did a series of posts in 2024 on Julia Lovell’s 2019 book, Maoism: A Global History on the varied forms it took in practice in other countries.

Notes:

(1) Berkowitz, Bill (2003): ‘Cultural Marxism’ Catching On. SPLC Intelligence Report 08/15/2003. <https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/cultural-marxism-catching/> (Accessed: 2024-23-04).

(2) Jacoby, Russell (2026): No, Western Marxism Wasn’t a CIA Plot. Jacobin 04/18/2026. <https://jacobin.com/2026/04/review-rockhill-western-marxism-cold-war> (Accessed: 2024-23-04).

(3) Balhorn, Loren (2022): Why the Three Internationals Couldn’t Agree. Jacobin 04/02/2022. <https://jacobinmag.com/2022/04/conference-three-internationals-1922-division-communists-social-democrats> (Accessed: 2024-23-04).

(4) Jacoby, Russell (1976): Stalin, Marxism-Leninism and the Left. Somerville: New England Free Press. The publisher has helpfully made this and several other pamphlets available for free in PDF format: <https://www.nefp.online/_files/ugd/63d11a_815e8b77de244ff4932553135154db03.pdf>

(5) Nixon in China (The Film). Richard Nixon Presidential Library YouTube channel 02/23/2012. <https://youtu.be/4cfsI4ZjTbU?si=xmwTmDq_Bf-9gqXl> (Accessed: 2026-23-04).

(6) Aly, Götz (2008): Unser Kampf 1968 – ein irritierter Blick zurück. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer.

Sarah Posner on the ever-evolving Christian Right in the US

Sarah Posner is a journalist who has been covering the Christian Right and Christian nationalists in the US for years, including at Talking Points Memo, where she seems to more often publishing the last couple of months.

In a column from last November, she reminds us that the mainstream media for decades largely tiptoed around the role played by the Christian Right in the Republican policy, even though they have played visible and important roles there since the late 1970s. Here she recalls how the legacy media covered that beat very superficially even into the early 2000s:

Back in those days, some, but certainly not all, newspapers and magazines were still reluctant to run investigative stories on the Christian right. Stated reasons included having recently published an article about religion, or an assumption that their readers would not have heard of the religious leaders who were the subject of the story. Tacit reasons were an allergy to covering religion critically at all, out of fear of being accused of disrespecting people’s faith, particularly, evangelical Christians. Those people, this reasoning went, say they just want to protect babies and families and express their piety in public. Who are we to judge? Some editors thought the religious right was too fringe to be relevant, or that the Republican Party did not actually care about them, and only used them for their votes every fourth November. [my emphasis] (1)

She recalls this example of the Christian Right’s practices:

Back in 2014, TPM published one of my stories that no one else wanted to touch. I had been working on it for several years, my reporting taking me around the United States and even to Israel, which plays a central role in many evangelicals’ apocalyptic theology and domestic politics. Former members of the International House of Prayer (IHOP) accused the organization and its leader, Mike Bickle, of myriad abuses, rooted in his demands for total capitulation to his unconventional, apocalyptic theology that required participation in a round-the-clock prayer room in a strip mall in suburban Kansas City, Missouri. Submission to his program of prayer and fasting in this insular, totalizing environment, Bickle convinced his acolytes, was essential to join an army of spiritual warriors who would bring about the militaristic, bloody, and world-altering second coming of Christ. [my emphasis]

The current US Ambassador to Israel, Baptist minister and former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, used his official role to promote the idea that God somewhere in the mists of time had permanently promised Israel a much bigger geographical presence than it now holds, which would include territory that is now part of Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, even parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. When that remark understandably drew criticism, Huckabee resorted to typical Christian Right obfuscation, saying that he was speaking theologically, not politically, whatever that may mean coming from the US Ambassador to Israel. (2)

Of course, pure religious piety, however misguided, isn’t the only factor at work with the Christian Right’s influence on the Republican Party. As Posner notes there, “It is maddeningly possible for the country to be led by an authoritarian fundamentally at odds with the desires of the majority, owing to how this movement, fueled by deep-pocketed donors, has become the core of the Republican electorate.”

And, as she reported earlier this month, this faction of the Republican Party is enthusiastically supporting Trump’s war of aggression against Iran, waged of course in conjunction with Israel. As she put it, the Christian nationalists “are intensifying their messaging that Trump is divine, that he is persecuted like Jesus was, that his war is destroying Iran and protecting Israel from Iranian savagery, all while igniting a Christian revival in America.” (my emphasis) (3)

She also notes that there are complications within the MAGA movcment/Trump cult between some rightwingers like Tucker Carlson who are criticizing Trump’s Iran War and giving it what sure looks like an antisemitic spin. “That is why an organization like the NFAB is making a bubble within a bubble — that is, a Christian Zionist bubble inside the MAGA bubble. They need to shield followers who might be at risk of absorbing MAGA anti-war messages. And so the Trump-cult group, the National Faith Advisory Board “is making a bubble within a bubble - that is, a Christian Zionist bubble inside the MAGA bubble.”

The idol of the Christian Right:

Notes:

(1) Posner, Sarah (2025): Traditional Media Never Took the Christian Right Seriously. TPM 11/04/2025. <https://talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/traditional-media-never-took-the-christian-right-seriously> (Accessed: 2026-11-04).  (Accessed: 2026-11-04).

(2) Clayton, Freddie (2026): Outcry after Ambassador Mike Huckabee suggests Israel has God-given right to Middle East land. NBC News 02/22/2026. <https://www.nbcnews.com/world/israel/outcry-us-ambassador-mike-huckabee-israel-god-right-middle-east-rcna260133> (Accessed: 2026-11-04).

(3) Posner, Sarah (2026): Trump’s Evangelical Leaders Are Working Overtime to Spin the Iran War. TPM 04/06/2026. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/trumps-evangelical-leaders-are-working-overtime-to-spin-the-iran-war (Accessed: 2026-11-04).

Iran War: It isn’t over and the US seems to have no actual diplomatic strategy

The Iran War isn’t over. Although the US hasn’t been actually declaring wars since the declarations of war on Japan and Hitler Germany.

At the moment, there has been a ceasefire since Friday between Israel and Lebanon/Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s government seems to be unhappy about the US having insisted on that ceasefire – which Netanyahu can use to preserve his hardliner image, and which fits with Trump’s Peace President posturing. That ceasefire may be over by the time I finish drafting this post, the way things are going. Netanyahu’s war against Iran and Lebanon is broadly popular in Israel.

But Netanyahu seems determined to continue its war in Lebanon, which is part of the war as far as Iran is concerned and which was part of the current ceasefire agreement. How well the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are doing in the fight in Lebanon against Hezbollah is another question. The IDF has based its training and war planning around short wars. Since October 7, 2023, they’ve been fighting a forever war to keep Benjamin Netanyahu in power and out of jail. He faces corruption charges in Israel for which the legal process has been suspended for as long as he is Prime Minister.

Former Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry had some blunt criticisms recently of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s Iran War in this interview with Boston Public Radio. (1) Kerry outlines what people need to know about the current wobbly and short ceasefire with Iran in this interview:

Former Senator and former Secretary of State John Kerry had some blunt criticisms recently of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s Iran War in this interview with Boston Public Radio. (1) Kerry outlines what people need to know about the current wobbly and short ceasefire with Iran in this interview:

Kerry talks a bit in this interview about the need for a transition to clean energy and mentions without prompting that he is part of an investment group focusing on green energy.

This is also an insightful interview with Anne Applebaum, who notes emphatically (and correctly!) that Trump obviously has no understand of geopolitics – how the international state system functions – and also no understanding of strategy (in diplomacy or anything else). Hearing Kerry talking about his negotiations with Iran as Secretary of State highlights how little competence the Trump regime has in diplomacy. (2)

Kerry comments in his interview that peace is a state of engagement between countries and peoples. That’s part of this whole “geopolitics” claim about which Trump, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner are obviously clueless.

Haaretz reported on the negotiations with Iran, which at the time of the article were scheduled to formally begin on the afternoon of April 11 (according to Iran):

Iran's key demands include a U.S. commitment not to attack Iran and a cease-fire across all fronts, including Lebanon; continued Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz; recognition of Iran's right to enrich uranium; the lifting of U.S. and international sanctions; payment of compensation to Iran; and the withdrawal of American forces from the region.

The U.S. demands include a ban on uranium enrichment on Iranian soil; removal of enriched uranium buried under the rubble of nuclear facilities bombed in June; curbs on Iran's ballistic missile program; and a commitment by Iran to halt support for regional proxy groups, including Hezbollah and the Houthis. (3)

Netanyahu has never been closer to his grand dream of wrecking Iran and turning it into a failed state. Iran is sometimes characterized as being the White Whale to Netanyahu’s Captain Ahab. He can be expected to try hard to sabotage any possibility of a peace agreement at this point.

Dahlia Scheindlin, whose analysis has been highly critical of Netanyahu’s authoritarian politics, warns:

Israelis should know the failings of indecisive diplomacy better than anyone. This was precisely the nature of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, where the failure was not in giving up territory but in refusing to declare the final status aim of Palestinian statehood next to Israel, once and for all. Phased conditions set up for failure characterized the hostage release-cease-fire deals with Hamas in Gaza – the war that is far from over. The Middle East analyst and recently released hostage Elizabeth Tsurkov argued that Israeli ambiguity is actually a symptom of a complete lack of strategy.

The Trump administration's 15-point plan might represent a comprehensive agreement; but it also might be too far-reaching for Iran to agree to, no matter how battered. If not, one can only hope – or recommend – that after buying into Netanyahu's ideology of waging war on Iran, Trump and his team do not adopt the pointless diplomatic doctrine of never deciding how to end those wars. [my emphasis] (4)

This is a mess, a confusing mess. It’s definitely not over.

Notes:

(1) John Kerry outlines what to know about the 2-week cease fire with Iran.  GBH News News YouTube channel 04/11/2026. <https://youtu.be/Jv7Jt1TJwek?si=Te21_msTkANhIVa3> (Accessed: 2026-11-04).

(2) Trump Wants to Invent a Fake Reality (w/ Anne Applebaum). The Bulwark YouTube channel 04/11/2026. <https://youtu.be/fkW_UU_BBaY?si=lZNdY_N-homWs6aw> (Accessed: 2026-11-04). The explicit discussion about geopolitics starts after 49:00 in the video.)

(3) Rozovsky, Liza & Reuters (2026): U.S., Iran Teams in Pakistan for Peace Talks Amid Doubts Over Lebanon, Sanctions. Haaretz 04/11/2026. Full link: <https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2026-04-11/ty-article/u-s-iran-teams-in-pakistan-for-peace-talks-amid-doubts-over-lebanon-sanctions/0000019d-7b3e-d68a-a39d-7b3f13f20000?gift=389c963817a74aa6a512384dcc326c68> (Accessed: 2026-11-04).

(4) Scheindlin, Dahlia (2026): How Not to End a War, According to Trump and Netanyahu. Haaretz 04/09/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2026-04-09/ty-article/.premium/how-not-to-end-a-war-according-to-trump-and-netanyahu/0000019d-72f1-dc9d-a5bd-7ffbb2950000?gift=d14b36d2fe0c47139c9e0093830121e2> (Accessed: 2026-11-04).

The challenges of ending the Iran War (Plus: Netanyahu speaks about one of his heroes)

Would it surprise anyone that Benjamin Netanyahu admires Genghis Khan?

Benjamin Netanyahu’s first English-language press conference since the start of the war with Iran, held earlier this month in Jerusalem, will be remembered less for the updates he provided on the progress of Israel’s military campaign than for his pronouncements on two seemingly disparate world-historical figures: Jesus Christ and Genghis Khan.

“History proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan,” the prime minister asserted, citing the American historian Will Durant. “Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation.”

“The democracies led by the United States have to reassert their will to defend themselves and to oppose their enemies,” he continued, “before the jarring gong of danger wakes them up, and wakes them up too late.” (1)

I wonder if Donald Trump thought his buddy Netanyahu was dissing him with that comment?

Someone should ask Baptist minister and current US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee what he thinks about his pal Netanyahu’s historical comparison there.

But the Christian Zionists – who overlap very much with the Christian nationalists – generally cheer whatever the most warmongering leaders in Israel are demanding.

Cease-Fire in Lebanon? Or somewhere?

Supposedly there’s a new ceasefire in Lebanon. By the time someone reads this a couple of hours after I post it, the “ceasefire” may already be over.

The public conventions around the endless number of ceasefires declared in Israel’s endless wars are confusing. One of those conventions is that Israel’s government, currently headed by Netanyahu, blames the US for forcing them into the “ceasefire.”

Of course, Israel and the US are not the only power players in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pressed US President Donald Trump on the importance of a ceasefire in Lebanon in a private phone call on Wednesday, the Arab and western officials told MEE.

Trump announced a 10-day ceasefire on Thursday afternoon, which several of the officials attributed to the kingdom’s lobbying.

It is still unclear whether Israel will comply with the agreement and how much pressure Trump will put on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (2)

That last sentence is part of the standard framing: The US pushes Israel into moderating its course. Israel reluctantly agrees. Fighting resumes, sometimes within hours. Ceasefire falls apart, sometimes minutes or hours after it begins. Israel blames Islamic terrorists. Or Hamas, or Hezbollah, or Iran, or the United Nations, and (always) antisemitism. Repeats endlessly that Israel has a right to exist, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the Israeli Defense Forces are the most moral army in the world.

Amos Harel is a journalist with Haaretz who seems to have good connections with the Prime Minister’s office, although he doesn’t seem to be doing stenography in his reporting.. In an April 17 column, he hits various points being floated by various players on the current ceasefire. His opening points:

A cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon was due to take effect at midnight on Thursday, after being imposed on both sides by U.S. President Donald Trump. It is set to last for 10 days, and the administration hopes for it to become permanent at the end of that period. During the cease-fire, Israel Defense Forces units will remain in the positions they seized in southern Lebanon. However, it's possible that Washington will force withdrawals on Israel from Lebanon, as it did last year in the Gaza Strip. (3)

This allows Netanyahu to claim he was forced into a pause, and we’ll soon see how much of a pause it is. In the current situation, Iran officially regards the illegal war that the US and Israel together on February 28 as involving Lebanon, from which Israel is trying to annex more territory, and Arab oil monarchies siding with the US and allowing the US to establish bases on their territory and use those facilities to wage the war.

Syria has not been front-and-center in the war. But the new Islamist government in Syria – which has drastically curtailed the autonomy and democratic practices by the Kurdish Rojava region, is also in talks with Israel over their illegal occupation of Syrian territory, including the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon. “Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa said talks with Israel have not reached a dead end, but are progressing with ‘great difficulty’ due to Israel's insistence on maintaining a presence on Syrian territory.” (4)

Harel’s report based on his government sources reflects the standard the-US-made-me-do-it position that allows Trump to claims for another two minutes or so that he is the Peace President who has established his Everlasting Peace Plan in the Middle East.

Not that Netanyahu had much of a choice. At this stage of the war, which he entered into largely due to Netanyahu's persuasion, Trump has become the final, if not the exclusive, arbiter. In fact, the contention that Israeli foreign policy was hijacked by the American president has a basis in fact. Just as Trump forced the conclusion of the previous 12-day war against Iran in June, he has now imposed temporary cease-fires in Iran and in Lebanon.

This lets Netanyahu claim to the Israeli public and political parties that he’s a relentless hardliner who would be crushing Israel’s enemies right and left if the US weren’t holding him back. The truth is that the US and Israel initiated a war against Iran that they are losing at the moment. Trump may or may not be willing to take the plunge of making a massive ground invasion. But his clown-show diplomacy that has so far been on display isn’t going to produce the kind of complicated settlement that would be required to actually end the Iran War and create an environment where some long-term structure for actually peace in the Middle East could take place.

And Israel since its founding has never accepted its own official national borders as permanent. Netanyahu is Captain Ahab and Iran is Moby Dick. It’s his life’s dream to turn Iran into a failed state. This is not in any realistic view of the national interest of Israel as it currently exists in its present official borders a policy protecting Israel’s national interests. But Netanyahu and even most of the opposition in the Knesset are committed to further expansionism.

Harel describes the determination of the Netanyahu government to continue the current war in what is probably the most polite way it could be phrased:

The stoppage of fighting on the two fronts voids the war's momentum, and lowers the likelihood of its resumption. Israel is halting the campaign in Lebanon with its craving half-fulfilled. Netanyahu will have a hard time persuading the public that the war's goals were achieved given that Hezbollah is not disarmed and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is still intact. [my emphasis]

Quaint as it may sound in this context, the world’s system of nation-states and of international law does not allow for unprovoked attacks by one sovereign nation on another. Neither Netanyahu nor Trump care about that in principle or in practice, except to the extent that potential victims of attack from the US and Israel can be translated into effective oppositions by enough other countries.

Iran and Hezbollah don’t seem to be ready to surrender:

Trump acceded to Iran's request for a cease-fire in Lebanon, which is aimed at leaving Hezbollah on its feet despite the blow it suffered. Despite their desire for a truce so they can recover, top figures in the Shi'ite organization threatened the Lebanese president and prime minister after they had agreed to a meeting between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to Washington.

Netanyahu presumably isn’t disturbed by that kind of description of his policies, because it lets him claim that the weak-kneed Americans caved in on this point, not the staunch Netanyahu government who is determinedly pursuing Israel’s territorial ambitions.

This may be the most important part of Harel’s report:

The prime minister [Netanyahu] took an overly optimistic line regarding regime change in Tehran, and Trump was swept up after him. This week, Mossad head David Barnea had to explain that the campaign to topple the regime will continue, even if the war ends. But that depends mainly on what Washington will say, and what a possible agreement between Iran and the U.S. will stipulate. [my emphasis]

Negotiations have to cover a lot

So far, Trump’s negotiations with Iran haven’t been able to produce an end to the war or a new nuclear-nonproliferation agreement after Trump 1.0 just threw out the JCPOA agreement that the Obama Administration negotiated and which was considered a model of an enforceable agreement of this type.

So far, Trump’s negotiations with Iran haven’t been able to produce an end to the war or a new nuclear-nonproliferation agreement after Trump 1.0 just threw out the JCPOA agreement that the Obama Administration negotiated and which was considered a model of an enforceable agreement of this type.

Harel touches on a number of key issues to be resolved if the Trump team somehow finds a way to establish agreements despite their only model of negotiation is Mob protection-racket style. I’m listing some of them as well as some others on which he didn’t focus in his long article. Ask yourself while scanning them if the Trump 2.0 regime has shown anything remotely close to the diplomatic creativity and professionalism resolving them would require.

Reaching a permanent ceasefire between Iran on the one side and the US and Israel on the other. This in itself wouldn’t require resolving all the issues listed here but it would involve several of them.

• Illegal Israeli occupations in Lebanon, and Syria. Gaza and the West Bank are also illegally occupied territories but those are not part of Iran’s goals in the current war.
• Navigation of the Strait of Hormuz
• Navigation of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden next to Yemen
• Iran’s uranium enrichment, including its current supply of enriched uranium
• Iran’s supply of conventional missiles
• Iran’s path to developing a nuclear bomb
• Efforts by Israel and the US to oust the Iranian government including US and Israeli regime-change operations inside Iran
• Iran’s support of Hizbollah and the Houthis
• Reparations to Iran from the US and Israel for damage caused during the current war
• Release of frozen Iranian funds controlled by the US
• The massive US sanctions imposed on Iran
• US bases in the Middle East

I didn’t include human rights issues inside Iran because neither Trump nor Netanyahu actually care about that. And insisting on those would inevitably involve uncomfortable discussion of Israeli colonial practices in the occupied territories and their genocidal actions in Gaza, as well plenty of public reminders of Trump’s ICE Gestapo goons and drastic gaps in the rule of law in the US. We hear a lot about the large numbers of hangings conducted by the Iranian government against protesters, and those are genuinely bad actions. But is the US going to ask Iran to agree to ban capital punishment and offer to do so in the US as a compromise? Israel itself just approved a new apartheid law on capital punishment for Palestinians only; are they going to put that on the negotiating table?

As Harel notes politely: “Despite the Americans' vast military advantage, the gap between the skills of the two sides' negotiators is worrisome. Talks on a nuclear agreement require patience and expertise, and the Iranians are far more adept in those categories than the Americans.” That’s certainly is a worrisome gap! Although I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen the word “worrisome” used as a synonym for “wide as the Grand Canyon.”

He also notes: “Last week, Trump threatened to annihilate the Iranian civilization, and then swiftly announced a new cease-fire. This week he quarreled with the pope, and accused him of being "weak on crime."

Harel is careful to assign responsibility for the whole current mess to … Palestinians: “The lethal flapping of the butterfly's wings, which began with the appalling massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, set in motion a lengthy series of regional changes whose peak was the second attack on Iran initiated by Israel and the United States.” But he goes on to observe drily, “Israel's boasting about their total defeat [of all their enemies] was not backed up on the ground.” Another smooth euphemism, this time meaning “bogus.”

Harel does have a gift for phrasing things politely:

Poised in the middle [between Iran and the US-Israel alliance] is an American president whose comportment is giving rise to growing doubts about his mental condition; an Israeli prime minister who replaced a cautious, suspicious approach to military adventures with a readiness to undertake almost every possible risk to remain in power and evade potential imprisonment, while waging a planned campaign of destroying Israeli democracy and the country's international standing; and a new Iranian supreme leader who was seriously wounded during the assassination of his father, the previous leader, who is in hiding underground and whose status in Tehran's decision-making system remains unclear. [my emphasis]

Also, apparently not having enough trouble on its hands, Israel would like to take on Türkiye militarily, as well! (Türkiye is a NATO ally.)

In his final paragraph Harel offers this observation:

A Pew Research Center poll published last week found that a majority of the American public, even among under-50 Republican voters, has a negative or very negative view of Israel. A pair of Israeli researchers who analyzed the data, Prof. Ted Sasson and Dr. Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis from the Institute for National Security Studies affiliated with Tel Aviv University, describe a total collapse of Israel's standing among young Americans, including among a public that Israel viewed as salient supporters. It's happening even among under-50 Christian Evangelicals.

Trump’s cheerfully posting AI images of himself as Jesus Christ is probably not helpful on the US public-opinion front, either.

Notes:

(1) Rapoport, Meron (2026): Less Jesus, more Genghis Khan: How Netanyahu sees Israel’s place in the world. +972 Magazine 03/31/2026. <https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-genghis-khan-jesus-sparta/> (Accessed : 2026-16-04).

 (2) Matthews, Sean (2026): Saudi Arabia pressed US to secure a Lebanon ceasefire to preserve Iran negotiations, sources say. Middle East Eye 04/16/2026. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-pressed-us-ceasefire-lebanon-preserve-iran-negotiations-sources-say> (Accessed : 2026-17-04).

(3) Harel, Amos (2026): Trump Dictates the Terms in Lebanon and Iran, Leaving Netanyahu Boxed In. Haaretz 04/17/2026). Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-04-17/ty-article/.premium/trump-hijacked-israeli-foreign-policy-so-netanyahu-had-no-say-in-lebanon-truce/0000019d-97f2-d290-afbf-b7f6aed40000?gift=d119d9a0330b4f03b0c4e1cedc417d30> (Accessed : 2026-17-04).

(4) Khoury, Jack (2026): Syria’s al-Sharaa: Israel talks not deadlocked but face 'great difficulty' over presence in Syria. Haaretz 04/17/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-04-17/ty-article-live/trump-says-war-in-iran-should-be-ending-pretty-soon/0000019d-9934-d9bd-abfd-fbf508480000?liveBlogItemId=1200413739#1200413739> Accessed: 2026-17-04).

Flashback to the Present: Making propaganda for Trump’s Iran War

Michael Doran from the Hudson Institute writing in the conservative Tablet, looks on the bright side of the Iran War: “while Trump has repeatedly defied the Beltway consensus on Iran and its allies over the past year and a half, none of the dire consequences that influential commentators predicted have come to pass. World War III hasn’t erupted.” (my emphasis) (1)

Nothing to see here, folks, move right along. Mission Accomplished!

Also, “The global economy hasn’t collapsed.” Everything’s fine!

For those of us “old enough to remember” the Iraq War, this all sounds sadly familiar.

At the end of this post I’ve included a link to a podcast in which Doran explains why he thinks Trump’s threat to wipe out Iranian civilization was way cool. And he and his podcast partner express their general contempt for any pesky laws of war against deliberately targeting civilians.

Doran’s piece is worth reading, though, as a good example of how to be a cheerleader for a misguided (and criminal) war that by any meaningful measure, the US is losing. Also, during the Iraq War the neocon war fans were endlessly saying things like Doran says here: “In doing so, they advance the very arguments that serve America’s enemies, undermining the credibility of a successful deterrent action and weakening the case for strong, burden-sharing alliances in the 21st century.” The libs are siding with the mullahs!!

The rest of the article is in the same vein, neocon talking points from the Iraq War days recycled to insert “Iran” for “Iraq.” Doran says the critics of Trump’s wars are operating on “fixed principles, which provide the lens through which events are narrativized.” In other words, he’s using stock neocon rhetoric and accused the Mean Libruls and dissident MAGA types of being stuck with unchanging rhetoric and (bad, rally bad) principles.

He even lays out seven ways to “own the libs” (my words, not his):

Myth 1: This was a “war of choice.”

A war of aggression in blatant violation of international law would be a better description. Iran did not initiate the current war. The US and Israel did so jointly.

Myth 2: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [the Obama Administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran] had moderated Iran and stabilized the Middle East before Trump broke it.

The JCPOA did what it was supposed to do. It limited Iran’s nuclear enrichment below the threshold that would allow them to reach the nuclear weapons capability, with unprecedently intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). I don’t recall seeing any Mean Libruls arguing that the JCPOA had stabilized the whole Middle East or transformed Iran into a liberal democracy. But maybe I just missed it.

Myth 3: Biden extracted America from wars in the Middle East.

Funny, I seem to recall Biden being severely criticized by activists for his support of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and that polls showed that criticism of that support was a key factor in suppressing the Democratic turnout in 2024 and returning Trump to the White House.

Myth 4: Tehran was ready to compromise.

The JCPOA was quite a compromise. But Obama negotiated it, so it must have been evil by definition in the eyes of the Trump cult. In the real world, as Joe Cirincione explains. “The Iran Nuclear Deal was the most effective non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated. … The JCPOA was the most important security agreement of this century. It solved the problem” of nuclear proliferation from Iran. (2) But it didn’t meet the goal of the Netanyahu government which the US has now embraced of attempted to turn Iran into a failed state. Or, as Trump has threatened, to wipe out the entirety of Iranian civilization.

Myth 5: Israel dragged America into the war.

Israel doesn’t have the capability to “drag” the US into a war, though the Israel Lobby is very influential. Certainly, there is a lot of criticism from the “restrainers” on the left and the right of the Biden and Trump Administrations for going along with Israel advocacy for its wars, including the Gaza War and now the Iran War – as well as Israel’s current annexationist efforts in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria.

Myth 6: Confronting Iran distracts from China.

Well, duh! The official national security policy of the United States since the Obama Administration has been to focus on counterbalancing China’s increasing geopolitical power. There has been and will continue to be legitimate criticisms of what assumptions the US makes and what actions it takes in that regard. But Trump’s second regime has definitely tilted away that priority. As well as running foreign policy like a Mob protection racket for the Trump crime family.

Myth 7: Trump and Netanyahu are warmongering megalomaniacs.

No, you DEI Libruls! Trump is the Peace President and Benjamin Netanyahu is the Mahatma Ghandi of the 21st century!!

Doran does manage, perhaps by accident, to sneak in some accurate statements here and there. For instance: “Iran’s drones and ballistic missiles can overwhelm the air and missile defenses of Israel, the United States, and their Gulf allies.” That’s true, although there is no evidence I’ve heard that Iran currently has the capability to strike the United States directly with their missiles.

The problem with hackery

Conservative propagandists are going to grind out own-the-libs diatribes for the foreseeable future. Probably until the whole world is running on wind and solar power.

But when governments start making policy based on it, that where I.F. Stone’s famous warning comes in: “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.”

If you want to hear “Mike” Doran directly, here is an hour-plus-long podcast of his from a week ago. (3) How much he indulges the same propaganda hashish he hands out, you can make your own guesses. In it, he calls the US-Israeli war against Iran as a war on behalf of the entire “West.” Except, you know, for parts of the “West” like Britain, Germany, France and several other countries usually considered part “the West.”

Notes:

(1) Doran, Michael (2026): Seven Myths About the Iran War. Tablet 04/13/2026. (3) <https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/seven-myths-iran-war-michael-doran> (Accessed: 2026-14-04).

(2) Cirincione, Joe (2026): Obama’s Deal Was Better Than Trump's War. Strategy & History 04/09/2026. <https://joecirincione.substack.com/p/obamas-deal-was-better-than-trumps> (Accessed: 2026-14-04).

(3) Israel Update - with Michael Doran and Gadi Taub. YouTube channel 04/09/2026. <https://youtu.be/kpyhwmm7qrY?si=H_5PKBg5aNNhWYvC> (Accessed: 2026-14-04).

Sorting through the noise on Israel’s current wars

Haaretz is an Israeli newspaper that has both English and Hebrew editions. The English edition unfortunately has most of its articles behind subscription. But because it’s willing to do actual critical reporting, even the headlines are sobering:

'Diseases Are Everywhere': Gaza's 'Catastrophic' Healthcare Crisis Is Worsening 04/14/2026

IDF Fire Kills Eight Palestinians in Gaza Over Past Day, Health Ministry Says 04/15/2026 (And you though Gaza was part of Trump’s Everlasting Peace Plan!)

Israel Doesn't Know How to Live Without War, and Maybe It Doesn't Want To 04/15/2026

As Iran War Dragged On, Israel Downed Fewer Missiles – and Cluster Missiles Wreaked Havoc 04/14/2026

Israel-Lebanon Talks Begin; Sources: Netanyahu Using Talks to Buy Time Against Hezbollah 04/14/2026

Declassified Files Expose Jewish Pre-state Underground Militia's Contacts With Nazi Germany 04/104/2026. (Wait! Say what?) The group referred to here is Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang.)

Israel Botched the Iran War – and Shattered Its Standing in the U.S. 04/08/2026

Netanyahu Ordered the War but the Opposition Sold It. Now Israel Will Pay the Price 04/08/2026

How Many Israelis Does It Take to Kill 300 Lebanese in 10 Minutes? 04/14/2026

Trailing in the Polls, Netanyahu Launches Another War: Restoring His Image 04/12/2026

The state of the current wars in Iran and Lebanon (and continuing military action against Gaza) is not giving Israelis much cause to celebrate. Linda Dayan reports on Israeli public opinion:

Jewish Israelis are dissatisfied with the government's handling of the war with Iran and are divided over whether it has improved Israel's overall security, according to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute published Monday. …

According to the survey, just 38 percent of Jewish Israeli respondents rated the government's management of the war as "good" or "excellent." Among Arab respondents, however, approval was lower, at 10 percent.

The data also shows variation within supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition. Among voters for Netanyahu's Likud party, 59 percent gave the government high marks, the lowest rate among coalition parties. (1)

Like all public opinion polls, it’s always good to pay attention to what they are actually showing. For instance, “I disapprove of the government’s handling of the war” may mean that they think it’s a war in which their government shouldn’t be involved. Or it may mean they think the government isn’t prosecuting the war aggressively enough. Or both at the same time.

During the Vietnam War in the US, it became common for people to say, “We never should have been there in the first place. But now that we are there, we should go ahead and win it.” This was a classic Mugwump kind of position. If the US never should have been there, why should it be there now just because it made a bad decision to put in all those soldiers? And, of course, what would “win it” mean in that case? Unconditional surrender of North Vietnam?

But actually, that’s a lazy way to try to sound harmlessly centrist. Then and now.

That’s also why an approve/disapprove question in an opinion poll is hard to interpret. Generally, there is broad support in Israel for the illegal wars on Iran and Lebanon. So depending on the wording of the poll, “disapprove” could include a large of people who “disapprove” because the wars aren’t being pursued even more aggressively.

The main leader of the Israeli opposition, Jair Lapid of the “centrist” party Yesh Atid, enthusiastically supports the wars.

The politics of the wars internationally shows that Israel’s support in the US and Europe has seriously dropped. That doesn’t mean that it won’t rise again later. Time and Israel’s actual policies will tell.

The Christian Post, which speaks to a conservative to very conservative Protestant audience, ran an article recently which is basically a rote summary of pro-war, pro-Netanyahu talking points. The article is titled, “Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” (2) This is a theme that Israel has been pushing for decades. There has been a lot of excellent analysis in the last three years discussing the ways in which that slogan is dishonest. Because criticizing Israel’s foreign policy – especially when they practice genocide as they have been doing in Gaza since 2023 – is not equivalent to antisemitism.

Antisemites do attack Israel and consider Israel part of their fantasized World Jewish Conspiracy. But it’s dishonest to dismiss legitimate criticisms of Israel’s government and its actions as antisemitic. And in fact, American Christians like the late Pat Robertson and John Hagee of the Christian United For Israel (CUFI) group promote an End Times theology that is not only bad Christian theology.

It’s also based on a view of the divine march of history that Jewish critics have been rightly pointing out for years is about as antisemitic as it gets. Because most versions of it promote the idea that before Jesus can come again, all the Jews of the world will be “gathered” into Israel, where most of them will be slaughtered in a big war. And the survivors will all convert to Christianity, and the world will finally be free of Jews. And, yes, Israel actively encourages these Christian Zionist kooks. The current US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is one of them. He recently promoted an extreme Greater Israel view in an interview – not very diplomatically smooth for an US ambassador who should be taking his job seriously. (3)

The Christian Post includes this stock peace of knee-jerk support for Israel’s wars:

Israel stands alone as the only country on earth whose right to exist is routinely denied by people who claim to only oppose its policies. Many people frequently disagree with America, but this sentiment is never followed by the absolution of the nation. You never hear, “I don’t hate the Iranians, just their right to self-determination,” or the same statement applied to the Russians, French, or Brazilians. This selective standard exposes the deeper issue. [my emphasis]

I think the writer probably meant to say “abolition” instead of “absolution.” “Absolution” is what Catholic priests give to people who confess their sins, i.e., forgiveness.

The story has various other pieces of stock defenses of Israel that we hear again and again and again. Not that it makes any difference to people who repeat such statement on podcasts and legacy TV news, but Israel is a member of the United Nations and is formally recognized by 164 countries (nine of them have “suspended” their recognition) and not recognized by 23. (4)

And, by the way, the government of China does not recognize Taiwan as a separate country – technically the US doesn’t either. North and South Korea are both UN members, but they both consider Korea to be a single country.

Notes:

(1) Dayan, Linda (2026): Most Israelis Disapprove of Government's Handling of Iran War, Survey Shows. Haaretz 04/14/2026. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-politics/2026-04-14/ty-article/.premium/most-israelis-disapprove-of-governments-handling-of-iran-war-survey-shows/0000019d-8a36-d290-afbf-aa76c9fe0000?gift=b057e7120263452fb0ea88b239ffa987> (Accessed: 20206-15-04).

(2) Huehl, Chris (2026): Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism: Why the distinction collapses under scrutiny. The Christian Post 04/06/2026. <https://www.christianpost.com/voices/yes-anti-zionism-is-antisemitism-why-the-distinction-collapses.html> (Accessed: 20206-15-04).

(3) Ghannoushi, Soumaya (2026): Mike Huckabee lifts the veil on US backing for Israeli expansionism. Middle East Eye 02/26/2026. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/mike-huckabee-lifts-veil-us-backing-israeli-expansionism> (Accessed: 2026-15-15).

(4) Countries that Recognize Israel 2026. World Population Review, n/d. <https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-recognize-israel> (Accessed: 2026-15-15).

The latest round in Trump's and Netanyahu's Iran War

This is an interview with John Mearsheimer and Joshua Landis discussing the current state of the Iran War; (1)

Mearsheimer says near the end, "it can't be a long war, but it can be a long war." As enigmatic as that sounds, it's his way of saying that it would be a disaster to the US and much of the world if it does go on as a long, active war. But the US has made bad mistakes before, i.e., the Iran War.

Joshua Landis warns about the implications of Israel's "mowing the lawn" strategy in which it periodically attacks the Gaza Strip and various neighbors: Iran, Syria, and Lebannon. They also discuss the potential for Israel to go to war with Türkiye. The combination of reflexive support by the US for Israel and the increasing militarization of Israeli politics and society brought us to this point. And it's hard to see how Trump will back out of it.

As the old saying goes, it's a hell of a lot easier to get into a war than to get out of one.

And when foreign policy is being run by a malicious clown-show of a regime like Trump's, it becomes even harder.

Notes:

(1) Will Trump’s Naval Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz Work? - John Mearsheimer and Joshua Landis. Switzerland with Tom Switzer YouTube channel 04/12/2026. <https://youtu.be/fIhG1t-Uvac?si=n9Ohd3zdEaQKti4M> (Accessed: 2026-13-04).

Jürgen Habermas and his contributions to history and political theory

The celebrated philosopher Jürgen Habermas passed away in March at age 96. There are many obituaries for him because he was one of the world’s best-known philosophers at the time of his death. (1)

Thomas Gregersen has a blog about Habermas and the liberal political philosopher John Rawls, and he has complied a long list of Habermas obituary links, many but not all in German. He includes pieces by the current German President Frank Walter Steinmeier, French President Emmanuel Macron, former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, and UN General Secretary António Guterres. (2)

For Americans, let’s pause just a moment to try to imagine President Donald Trump writing an informed obituary for a political philosopher who wrote books like The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Theory of Communicative Action, and The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. It would come out something like: “Yes, a German guy named Habermas just died. I don’t know much about him, but I heard he suffered from Trump derangement syndrome and was a very low IQ guy.”

Others in Gregersen’s list of Habermas obituary authors include: Eric Alterman, Seyla Benhabib, Micha Brumlik, Rainer Forst, Nancy Fraser, Norbert Frei, Axel Honneth, Martin Jay, Alexander Kluge, Robert Misik, Jan-Werner Müller, Herfried Münkler, Raimund Löw, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Piketty.

Habermas and democracy

The eminent legal scholar Cass Sunstein did an obituary reflection on Habermas' work on his Substack. He writes:

Jurgen Habermas is one of the most important political philosophers of the 20th century; he has been preoccupied for much of his life with the problem of political legitimacy. Under what circumstances is it legitimate for political authorities, mere human beings, to exercise power over other human beings? It is unsurprising that a German philosopher - in his teens during the Nazi period and a witness to countless other atrocities since - should direct his attention to this question. Mr. Habermas thinks that the question is especially urgent in an era that is “postmetaphysical,” in the sense that it has lost the sense that we have wholly external foundations by which to ground our judgments and choices. Whether or not we believe that God exists, it seems clear that as citizens in a heterogeneous society we must proceed on the understanding that our choices are our own. But even as he insists on this point, Mr. Habermas draws a line against modern irrationalists, many of them - like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida - influential within the modern academy. Mr. Habermas says, tellingly, that those who oppose reason and the Enlightenment can give no account of the basis for their own rhetoric, which seems inspired by the Enlightenment commitment to human liberation. [my emphasis] (3)

Habermas wrote a lot about the philosophy of law. He stressed the connection between democracy and the rule of law, i.e., each is essential to the other. The rule of law in democratic theory means not only that the laws apply to everyone equally but also that the laws are legitimate only when there is valid democratic representation in their making. And likewise the laws are essential to establishing and maintain democracy. The Trump and Orbáns of the world want to do away with both, because democracy and the rule of law are inextricably intertwined concepts and systems of governance. His work fits into the field of “critical legal studies.”

Habermas and history

Habermas was often called Germany’s most famous philosopher during the last several decades, and that’s likely true. He was a prolific writer and often addressed current political concerns. He was even famous enough that his name has its own adjective, “Habermasian.” He is rightly given credit for initiating the Historikerstreit (Historians’ Debate) of the 1980s, a dispute over attempts be rightwing historians to minimize the significance of the Holocaust. Briefly put, the dispute initially was over a claim by a rightwing historian that actually Joe Stalin and the Soviet Communists were responsible for the Holocaust. Yes, that argument was as crackpot as it sounded. And now, you were pretty much have to seek out people with Nazi tattoos to find someone making that same claim.

But a lasting feature of that controversy was a new focus for both scholars and politicians on the most sensible and appropriate ways to compare the Holocaust in particular with other historical events. Genocide scholar Omer Bartov, who was one of the many genocide scholars who called out the Netanyahu government’s acts of genocide in the 1923-2026 (and continuing) Gaza War, wrote a retrospective piece on the Historikerstreit, in which he describes the implications for politics and history of that dispute. (4) When present-day figures like TechBro oligarch Elon Musk or our Opus Dei Vice President (and Viktor Orbán fan) J.D. Vance tell Germans it’s time for them to get over all this here reflecting on the evils of Nazism, you’re hearing similar themes to those promoted by de facto Nazi apologists during the Historikerstreit.

The Frankfurt School and Politics

Habermas was the most famous figure of what is called the Second Generation of the Frankfurt School. It actually had and still has its own academic institution, the Institute for Social Research. This is the description of some of its leading figures from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Some of the most prominent figures of the first generation of Critical Theorists were Max Horkheimer (1895-1973), Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), Friedrich Pollock (1894-1970), Leo Lowenthal (1900-1993), and Eric Fromm (1900-1980). Since the 1970s, a second generation began with Jürgen Habermas, who, among other merits, contributed to the opening of a dialogue between so-called continental and the analytic traditions. With Habermas, the Frankfurt School turned global, influencing methodological approaches in other European academic contexts and disciplines. It was during this phase that Richard Bernstein, a philosopher and contemporary of Habermas, embraced the research agenda of Critical Theory and significantly helped its development in American universities starting from the New School for Social Research in New York. (5)

The Frankfurt School is often described, accurately enough, as working on social theory with particular emphasis on the theories of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Max Weber. The became especially known for their sociological studies on the “authoritarian personality” to try to understand the social and psychological characteristics of people who are attracted to authoritarian movements, including work in the United States directed by Max Horkheimer known as the Studies in Prejudice series. Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse later started using the term Critical Theory for their perspective, a label that has endured for a while, i.e., since 1937. (6)

During the first six decades of the 20th century, there were two dominant schools of left theory in European politics, most notably those associated with the Social Democratic Parties and the Soviet-line Communist Parties. Pretty much since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, those two broad schools of thought and politics considered themselves Marxist socialists. The polemics between the Social Democrats and Communists over who represented the true and pure version of Marxism and socialism. Although not nearly as significant as those two in actual political participation, Trotskyism was a split-off from Communist that also considered itself Marxist and socialist (and Communist) that has influenced a lot of historical accounts in particular. Not having much actual political power after Trotsky left the Soviet Union, Trotskyists became famous for their hair-splitting polemics against other who claimed to be Marxists. The best working definition I’ve ever heard of that trend is: Trotskyists are the people who support revolutions everywhere except where there is one going on. Actual revolutions are never pure enough for them.

It was disputes like that over the purest version of Marxism that promoted Karl Marx himself to write to his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels that he was happy that “I, at least, am not a Marxist.”

That context is important for the Frankfurt School’s history. Their political positioning was more-or-less militant left social-democracy, though their militance was more intellectual and theoretical. They didn’t personally play major roles in political parties and didn’t plot sabotage attacks against arms manufacturers, or whatever. But they were very concerned with politics and were generally committed to a Marxist model of social revolution that was not focused on promoting violent uprisings but was also not pacifist.

Skipping over a few rabbit-holes that could be explored here, it’s also notable that another well-known Frankfurt School adherent, legal theorist Franz Neumann, who authored on of the best early studies of the German Nazi system, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933-1944 (1944). Neumann came to the United States and worked for the US Board of Economic Warfare and the Intelligence Division of the US Chief of Staff, joining the now-legendary Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the major predecessor organization of the CIA. Herbert Marcuse was one of the analysts he brought to work in the OSS, and Marcuse later worked with the State Department Intelligence.

After Marcuse became an icon of the “student revolution” in the 1960s, he was wrongly reported to have worked for the CIA, which he didn’t. Tim Müller wrote a detailed account of Marcuse's intelligence career, Krieger und Gelehrte: Herbert Marcuse und die Denksysteme im Kalten Krieg. (7) It was a chronic problem for US intelligence during the 1950s that they wanted and needed good intelligence information on the Communist world. But the atmosphere of the McCarthy period made anyone who was extremely familiar with Marxism almost automatically suspicious. That lack of expertise contributed significantly to misunderstanding of events in Vietnam and even of the Soviet-China splits, which actually began in the mid-1950s but wasn’t understood by US intelligence dominated by an assumption of a World Communist Conspiracy centered in Moscow. Müller observes that Marcuse’s 1958 book Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis was reflective of the kind of intelligence evaluations he provided to the State Department. Among other things, he rightly predicted that a post-Stalin Soviet Union would likely be opening to moving to a position of peaceful coexistence with the US. Something that the State Department was reluctant to believe given its ideological assumptions about Soviet Communism.

Habermas and Politics

That was the political and philosophical environment of the school of thought in which Habermas was educated and which he himself developed further. As part of the Frankfurt School tradition, he identified with the left of the German Social Democratic Party of the 1960s, which had in 1959 adopted what was called the Godesberg Program, which adopted reform proposals that retreated from such classical Marxist goals as the eventual nationalizing of the means of production. The left of the party and later the larger student movement viewed it as a conservative capitulation to the right and an abandonment of desirable ideals.

Habermas had a particular vision of radical democratization that focused on encouraging broad engagement by ordinary citizens. But he also rejected what he saw as something like disruption for the sake of disruption by student activists. Because he wanted to promote grassroots dialogue and real discussion among ordinary citizens, not disruption in the hope that it would produce some kind of radical social transformation for the better. But that didn’t mean he was shy about debating. On the contrary. He saw sharp and intense arguments as necessary processes in a dialectical process of democratization. In one argument that became famous, he accused radical students of “left fascism” for some of their approaches to confrontation. But he took the mobilization of students in The Sixties and their increased engagement in political action as basically a healthy sign for democracy, which he articulated in his books on Structural Transformation and Communicative Action.

Habermas and another 2nd generation Frankfurt School figure, Claus Offe, publicized the concept of “late capitalism” to characterize the period from 1970 or so on with its new priorities like grappling with ecological challenges, in which the “legitimation problems” of capitalist democracies appeared to be growing.

One of the stranger rightwing crackpot theories of recent decades is one that starts from the authoritarian right’s resentment of Horkheimer’s Studies in Prejudice series. It goes like this: The Frankfurt School was a group of German Jewish Marxists who begat Postmodernism which begat Political Correctness which begot Critical Race Theory which begat Wokeism. Far right stars like Christopher Rufo have pimped this silly narrative.

Because it refers to things that most rightwing podcast fans are never going to read, most of them won’t know or care that this is vapid nonsense. The Frankfurt School figures were Marxists, or at least significantly influenced by Marxism. Marxism is a theory based on a materialist philosophical outlook and a materialist theory of history. Postmodernism is “a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.” (8)

Quick Check: Frankfurt School thought is based or “broad skepticism”? In the philosophical sense, no, although Critical Theory relies on, well, critical analysis which involves methodological skepticism. Subjectivism? Well, their Freudian perspective does recognize that people are motivated by subjective feelings and impressions, but assumes they are based on material processes, both individual and social. Relativism? “Relativists characteristically insist, furthermore, that if something is only relatively so, then there can be no framework-independent vantage point from which the matter of whether the thing in question is so can be established.” (9) Nope, that’s not Frankfurt School. Critical Theory. either. Sensitivity to ideology in power relations? Well, yes, but not in the reductionist and rather fuzzy-headed way postmodernism approaches it. Also, good grief? How could any social theory of politics ignore the role of ideology? General suspicion of reason? Not even close to a fit. Habermas warned in a 2006 essay, “A ‘post-truth democracy’, such as the New York Times saw on the horizon during the last Presidential elections [of 2004], would no longer be a democracy” - another sharp difference from the postmodern conceptions. (10)

Habermas’ book The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity takes a highly critical view of tthe postmodernists’ approach. In it he writes, “Postmodernism is characterized by the withering away of every form of unifying, principle-led interpretation of the world; it carries the anarchistic features of a polycentric world that has lost its previous categorical differentiations.” (11)

Crackpot theories are par for the course on the radical right. But that bizarre theory is just goofy.

Habermas is also known for promoting the concept of constitutional patriotism, which originated with Dolf Sternberger, a conservative thinker, in 1979. Habermas expanded this concept and held it up as a constructive alternative to the traditional patriotism founded on a more narrow nationalism. Which also fit well with his enthusiastic advocacy for the European Union and a post-national project.

He was a member of the publishing board of the German journal on politics and history Blätter für deutsche und international Politik from 1998 until his passing. The April 2026 issue of Blätter includes an obituary essay for him titled “World Spirit on Paper” by Hauke Brunkhorst – a play on Hegel’s famous description of Napoleon as the World Spirit on a Horse, after seeing himself ride through Hegel’s then city of residence, Jena. (12)

Habermas and Religion

Habermas’ last major work, published in 2019, was a large (over 1700 pages) two-volume work about the relationship of religion and philosophy in Western philosophy. It deals with the interaction of the two ways of viewing the world, such as his analysis of the evolution of the concept of universal human rights from that of John Locke’s religion-based concept of natural law to the secularized social forms it took with David Hume and Emmanuel Kant.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a long article on Habermas by James Godron Finlayson and Dafydd Huw Rees.

This is a German-language retrospective on Habermas and his impact: (13)

Notes:

(1) Stefan Dege & Stuart Braun (2026): Deutsche Welle 03/14/2026. https://www.dw.com/en/celebrated-philosopher-j%C3%BCrgen-habermas-dies-aged-96/a-76361563> (Accessed: 2026-10-04).

(2) Jürgen Habermas 1929–2026: Obituaries and Tributes. Political Theory - Habermas and Rawls, 03/14/2026. https://habermas-rawls.blogspot.com/2026/03/habermas-dies-at-age-96.html (Accessed: 2026-10-04).

(3) Sunstein, Cass (2024): On the Death of Jurgen Habermas: A Day to Mourn, A Hero to Celebrate. Cass’s Substack 03/14/2026. <https://casssunstein.substack.com/p/on-the-death-of-jurgen-habermas> (Accessed: 2026-10-04).

(4) Bartov, Omer (1992): Time Present and Time Past: The Historikerstreit and German Reunification. New German Critique 55, 173-190. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/488296?seq=1>

(5) Corradetti, Claudio (2026): The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory. <https://iep.utm.edu/critical-theory-frankfurt-school/> (Accessed: 2026-11-04).

(6) Horkheimer, Max (1937): Traditionelle und kritische Theorie. Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung Jahrgang 6, 245-294.

Horkheimer, Max & Marcuse, Herbert: (1937): Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung Jahrgang 6, 625-647.

(7) Müller, Tim M. (2010): Krieger und Gelehrte: Herbert Marcuse und die Denksysteme im Kalten Krieg. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition.

(8) Duignan, Brian (2026): "postmodernism". Encyclopedia Britannica 03/26/2026, <https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy> (Accessed 2026-11-04).

(9) Maria Baghramian and J. Adam Carter: Relativism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 01/10/2025. <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/> (Accessed 2026-11-04).

(10) Habermas, Jürgen (2006): Religion in the Public Sphere. European Journal of Philosophy 14:1, 18.

(11) Habermas, Jürgen (1988): Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen. Chapter VI.II. Frankfurt am Main. My translation into English.

(12) Brunkhorst, Hauke (2026): Weltgeist auf Papier. Zum Tode von Jürgen Habermas. Blätter 4:2026, 49-58.

(13) Habermas - Ein europäischer Vordenker. Irgendwas mit ARTE und Kultur YouTube channel 03/16/2026. <https://youtu.be/5_9JJJjIAFc?si=i4Vn2F3zIq7C1CFn> (Accessed 2026-12-04).

Decapitation Strikes

With the President openly bragging about targeted assassinations against Iranian government leaders, it’s worth remembering that it’s not a new idea. And it has always been a dubious one, at best.

Robert Pape, who has been giving lots of interviews in the first month-plus of the Iran War, is an authority on the history of aerial bombing. In his 2014 book Bombing To Win, he writes about bombing in the Gulf War, i.e, the war of 1990-1991 in which the US intervened under legitimate and specific United Nations authority to push Iraq’s armies under Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, which Iraq had illegally occupied. (There was no formal Congressional declaration of war, of course.)

The goals of bombing

Pape uses the conventional distinction between tactical and strategic bombing. Tactical bombing employed in direct support of land and/or sea forces. Strategic bombing is used to attack civilian and military infrastructure such as factories or key transportation facilities, which are often found in urban areas far from the front lines. There is a long-standing controversy going back to the First World War as to whether it is legitimate to deliberately target civilian areas for the purpose of undermining civilian morale. The latter even in its most sanitized expressions, sounds awfully like a sanitized excuse, i.e., we’re not trying to bomb civilians to kill them, only to kill their war morale.

What was once called “morale bombing” is now more often referred to as “punishment campaigns.” Although that term can also be used (a bit fuzzily) to include targeting infrastructure to convince the other side to give up or come to terms. Some confusion comes in here derived from classical 19th century military concepts, especially those identified with Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), which stressed that the real political goal of any war was to destroy the enemy’s will to fight. This is sometimes taken as a deep psychological insight. But what it really means is convincing the enemy side that they no longer consider continuing the fight to be less onerous than making a peace agreement.

When combined with the notion of “total war” that has developed since the Napoleonic wars, which stressed that notion that wars are between whole societies, not just the formal armed forces, we wind up with the notion that undermining the civilian public’s “war morale.” The idea that such a goal can be achieved by bombing cities and driving civilian into mass panic and even a revolution (“regime change”) against their own government. The First World War experience of both Britain and Germany showed clearly that this assumption was wrong.

And the experience has been repeated many times since then, most recently by the Iranian people’s unwillingness to overthrow their own government on behalf of a two hostile powers, the US and Israel, which are bombing their country in a war of aggression and killing large numbers of civilians. But the fact that such expectations have been disappointed for over a century won’t stop a meathead like white Christian nationalist Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth from praying to God to help him inflict death on the heathen hordes as send them all to Hell for eternity.

Decapitation strategies

The concept of “decapitation” can refer to both targeted assassinations of senior leaders and to the effort to interference with the enemy country’s military command and control functions.

Times have changed since the Gulf War, because back then public acknowledgment that assassination of leaders was a deliberate goal was considered at least bad form, even among Republicans. The Bush Senior Administration actually fired a general who spoke too bluntly in public about what Bush and his Defense Secretary Dick Cheney were planning to do. Time magazine adopted a diplomatic tone in describing what happened:

Last week [in November 1990] Cheney fired the highly decorated Air Force Chief of Staff, General Michael Dugan, for “poor judgment at a sensitive time” in speaking indiscreetly on secret and diplomatically touchy issues relating to the gulf crisis. Dugan was the first member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be dismissed since President Harry Truman in 1949 sacked Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Louis Denfeld and the first military commander to be dismissed since Truman ousted General Douglas MacArthur in 1951.

Cheney blew up after reading on-the-record comments that Dugan, in office only 79 days, made to Washington Post and Los Angeles Times correspondents accompanying him on a week-long trip through the Middle East. Dugan, a West Point graduate, talked in considerable detail about classified operational plans, including the use of Saudi bases for American B-52 flights in wartime and training routines for the supersecret F-117A Stealth fighters. In comments deeply distressing to America’s allies, Dugan advocated bombing Iraqi cities –including downtown Baghdad – and said, “I don’t expect to be concerned” about political constraints. [my emphasis] (1)

The New York Times was a bit more clear:

General Dugan, in articles published on Sunday by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, said the Joint Chiefs of Staff had concluded that the only effective military option for driving Iraqi forces out of Kuwait was heavy bombing of Baghdad to “decapitate“ the senior Iraqi leadership, making President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, his family and senior commanders primary targets.

“The cutting edge would be in downtown Baghdad," General Dugan was quoted by The Post as saying. “If I want to hurt you, it would be at home, not out in the woods someplace.“ (2)

Back then, it was too much even for Dick Cheney that a US general would describe war plans so bluntly! He was the first senior general at that level to be fired since Douglas MacArthur in 1951. Four decades later, it was still considered a big deal. Today “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth firs generals if they seem to be too little sympathetic to his Christian nationalist Crusader mentality.

Michael Dugan

The Gulf War decapitation plan was in line with a goal of introducing what its proponents called strategic paralysis. That term probably had slightly more nuance than “killing a bunch of senior officials and hope everything falls apart.” But that was the core idea.

Robert Pape was blunt in a 1997 assessment: “a strategic bombing strategy, designed by [John] Warden and aimed at decapitating the Iraqi leadership, was executed during the opening days of the air war against Iraq, and failed completely.” (3)

Pape also wrote:

The decapitation campaign, known as Instant Thunder, pursued victory solely through strategic bombing of a small number of political and economic targets in the hope of isolating Saddam Hussein's regime from its political and military control structures, thus leading to its overthrow or strategic paralysis, either of which would force Iraq to abandon Kuwait. (4)

Pape emphasizes that air power was critical to pushing back the Iraqi army in the Gulf War because of its tactical role: “Air power did succeed in coercing Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, but it did so by undermining its ability to defend against the Coalition's ground threat.” (p. 212) He refers to this as the use of “theater air power” (a similar concept to tactical air power). He also points out that the Gulf War saw “the first major use of strategic bombing to decapitate an opponent's leadership in order to achieve victory by changing or paralyzing the enemy government.” He also takes it as an example showing that tactical air power has become even more effective compared to “strategic air campaigns against an enemy’s political and economic centers,” i.e., strategic bombing.

Robert Farley in 2021 also speculated on what might have happened had the initial decapitation strike in Iraq had succeeded:

In the early days of the air campaign of the 1991 Gulf War, the United States undertook a concerted effort to track and strike Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The effort was predicated on the belief that eliminating Saddam Hussein would have two effects; it would throw the Iraqi military hierarchy into chaos, and it would make the surviving Iraqi leadership more amenable to a negotiated solution.

The effort to kill Hussein was only one episode in the U.S. pursuit of “decapitation” as a politico-military strategy. In the post-Cold War era, the United States has faced a variety of tyrants and terrorists. U.S. leaders reasoned that steps to crush the head of the snake might make it unnecessary to kill the entire body, thus sparing much destruction and civilian death.

The 1991 decapitation attacks, and similar attacks launched in 2003, failed. [my emphasis] (5)

Notes:

(1) Ready, Aim, Fired. Time 10/01/1990. <https://time.com/archive/6716028/ready-aim-fired/> (Accessed: 2026-04-04).

(2) Schmitt, Eric (1990): Confrontation in the Gulf: Air Force Chief Is Dismissed for Remarks on Gulf Plan: Cheney Cites Bad Judgment. New York Times 09/18/2026. l (Accessed: 2026-04-04).

(3) Pape, Robert (1997): The Air Force Strikes Back: A Reply to Barry Watts and John Warden. Security Studies 7:2, 213. <https://doi.org/10.1080/09636419708429346>

(4) Pape, Robert (2014): Bombing To Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, 211-214. Ithica and London: Cornell University Press.

(5) Farley, Robert (2021): Counterfactual: What If Saddam Hussein Had Died in the First Gulf War? The National Interest 11/14/2021. <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/counterfactual-what-if-saddam-hussein-had-died-first-gulf-war-196220> (Accessed: 2026-04-04).

(6) Naegele, Tobias (2022): Chiefs, Part 10: The Invisible Chief’. Air & Space Forces Magazine 11/09/2022. <https://www.airandspaceforces.com/chiefs-part-10-dugan-the-invisible-chief/> (Accessed: 2026-10-04).