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PaperclipPerfector  18hr ago (text post)   2247 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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It's ironic. The conspiracy theory would be valid if it were applied to another person instead : Mojtaba Khamenei

Iran's new Supreme Leader is either maimed, on his death bed, or already dead.

He hasn't made a public appearance since his appointment, in person or on video. We know that he was injured in some capacity. There are plausible-ish reports that he has been flown over to Russia for emergency medical care.

Frankly, Netanyahu's death would be a nothing burger when compared to Trump or the Khamenei family's death. It would also be impossible to hide given the democratic nature of Israel. The attacks on Iran have unanimous support from Jews in Israel (~93% approval). Netanyahu would be replaced by a caretaker govt, with a Likud placeholder, Yair Lapid, or Benny Gantz as a temporary face. The attacks would continue.

Before Oct 7th, Israel had a diverse political landscape spanning everything from the far left to the far right. Oct 7th collapsed the Overton window to only tolerate the center-to-center right. That's it. Unlike the decades prior, Netanyahu's actions have bipartisan support and a new leader would merely change the pace of Israel's offensive, not much else. The war is a foregone conclusion.

Lastly, the gulf states and the US now have more at stake than Israel. Rising oil prices will decide Trump's midterm fate, and he risks looking like a loser if he pulls out early. After Iran's drone tantrum, the gulf is now brought into Israel's framing of Iran's military capabilities as an existential threat. They will want Iran's nuclear efforts and dirty weapons manufacturing capacities to stay dismantled for good.

Like 8 guys in front him for succession all got immediately killed. It seems likely he is laying low so that he doesn't similarly get to see some cool top secret American military technology first hand.

Iran's new Supreme Leader is either maimed, on his death bed, or already dead.

So why did they pick him? It seems like such an odd thing to do. I mean, some scarring, fine, "disfigured, vengeful, homosexual Ayatollah" is a pretty funny villain for a Saturday morning cartoon. But if he's dying or dead, why not just pick someone else? Unless the USA got him right after he was picked, but then the USA would tell us the particular strike I would think? They were saying he was dead before it was confirmed he was even picked.

The only Islamic group to defeat the US was the Taliban; they may simply be taking inspiration from Mullah Omar in picking a reclusive leader with severe war injuries.

Good strategy to imitate the Taliban, now if only they could raise the perception that their enemies excuse child molesters in their midst...

I think it's a pretty funny thing to do if you are tired of the US assassinating your leadership.

Is Bowen Yang still on SNL? I can't wait for the poorly-closeted Ayatollah Weekend Update sketch.

Lindsey Graham forces us into a war with the gay Ayatollah, Schearer said something about how the Roehm era S.A. was riven by the kind of bitter interpersonal strife only possible among homosexuals.

Heftige Rivalität, soon on Netflix.

What's Andy Samberg doing these days?

So why did they pick him?

He was unable to step back when they asked for volunteers. They knew the person with the title would have a target on their back.

Supposedly his dad was adamantly against him taking over, possibly for being gay, possibly for being an idiot.

Maybe the coma is a feature not a bug - he makes a decent figurehead, while being too incapacitated to attempt to actually rule, while also being totally expendable. Same logic as electing Biden, and it fits with the "mosaic" approach.

Yeah I guess I've never had the most sophisticated military in history targeting me, but it seems shortsighted to pick a guy you will need to replace later. Coaching changes always produce instability.

It's not really ironic, because I and others do believe in a high likelihood that Khamenei is dead or severely injured also due to the lack of public presence typically shown by a wartime leader.

You want irony, I saw some IDF guy on Fox News earlier today float the theory Khamenei is dead, and he actually said the Iranians should release a video of him to prove he's not dead... it was literally like he was saying "we released the Coffee Shop video to prove Netanyahu isn't dead, what do you have Khamenei?" It's a strange situation.

Of course Twitter uses proceeded to AI generate a video of Khamenei in the exact same coffee shop scene replacing Netanyahu, pretty funny warfare nowadays.

If we go in with no priors, then the situations can seem somewhat similar.

However that is not the case. In real life, we know Mossad knows where and when substantial portions of Iranian leadership takes a piss. On the other hand, we also know that Iran and the IRGC's best plan is typically to try and shoot as much shit as they can in the general direction of an Israeli airbase to hopefully kill a few pilots and temporarily take a runway offline.

I think this is true, which is why I don't see how security concerns would be the reason for Netanyahu's total absence in his public-facing role. He can do meetings and pressers and meet-and-greets! The Iranian leaders actually can't. So why hasn't he done any public engagement like that, at all, for a week?

Could be some unrelated medical issue. The guy is 76.

For the record, if it turns out Netanyahu has died there is no information, medical records, doctor testimony, audio, video that could convince me it was a poorly timed medical event rather than an Iranian attack haha.

The sheer Larry David-esque humor potential would greatly bolster the "dankest timeline" hypothesis.

Back circa 2011-12 I speculated that if Obama wanted to win in such an incredible landslide that Dems could get back to close to their 2008 landslide would be to basically go away. The theory was that, in my opinion, "Fake Obama" aka the person who didn't really have policy positions and just had really good posters saying "Hope and Change" was much more popular than the real Obama. This is obviously true for Israel. Netanyahu is reviled by Europeans, so much that they have brought a bunch of pseudo-real criminal prosecutions against him for warcrimes of dubious veracity. If, instead, generic Israel is seen as a second tier actor in this war, they can default back to something like being 20% underwater instead of 30-40% in those areas.

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