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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   872 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 5, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Quick strawpoll to gauge the level of background knowledge for the Iran conflict.

Except the current clusterfuck has nothing to do with the question. It is a bit like saying that Poland and Russia hate each other because of the Schism of 1054

But then, your own politicians assert that 2000+ year old literature has everything to do with the question...

I mean, if you go with Putin's explanations on that Tucker Carlson interview...

This seems like a decent question in the context of a 20 question quiz. But if you're going to pick only 1 question there's lots of better ones. Off the top of my head: Who deposed the Shah? How many casualties in the Iran-Iraq war?

I figured it was probably the sunni/shiite schism, but I answered no because I wasn't sure.

Same here.

I'm honestly sure I read about this at some point (did a bit of a deep dive on early Muslim history a year or two ago), but I couldn't for the life of me remember that one.

If I was more confident in my ignorance, I'd say that I absolutely did know what happened in Karbala in 680- obviously the Battle of the Camel (different people, different location, prior Fitna/ Islamic civil war).

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