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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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What would have to happen for Iran to stop being attacked by the United States and Israel?

There's no good way to knock over a regime but the Trump Method is probably close to optimal for minimizing human suffering. This question demonstrates why. It's the same question CNN anchors keep asking. What's the plan, what do we want, how do we structure this new blah blah blah....

The Hegemon has conveyed that it is unhappy with the current leadership of the country. It doesn't care how or in what form the Iranian people choose to reconstitute their leadership. That is - as it should be - up to them. The Hegemon has simply declared the existing leadership unacceptable in the clearest way possible.

How do you get it to stop? Show the Hegemon that someone / something else is in charge that's sufficiently different in behavior from the previous leadership. What's sufficiently different? Intentionally strategically ambiguous - you do seem to have the strongest possible incentive to make it something acceptable to the Hegemon, though, and it can continue communicating its displeasure until you find an acceptable answer.

It's like training a dog or a model.