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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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I have never argued that regime change is necessary and neither has Trump

See, that's what I say I hate about you, and what you gleefully embrace: goalpost movement and unconditional defense of anything The Great Leader does and how he contradicts himself. Utterly zigger-like. Speaking of unconditional, we've been over this:

There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).” Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

1 week into the war.

Does this looks like the MOU and the acceptance of Mojtaba Khamenei?

This was after Trump already bombed and killed Iran's leaders and they were in the process of selecting new ones. When actually speaking on the subject of regime change, Trump made it clear in his address launching the war that the Iranian people had the opportunity to overthrow the regime, and that he hoped that they would take it, but that it was not essential. The line about "no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" is actually the more inflexible line if I have to explain anything away, but I don't think there's very much to explain. All wars aim for surrender and most end with settlement instead. I have argued before that the MOU was an Iranian surrender, if adhered to.

The line about "no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" is actually the more inflexible line if I have to explain anything away, but I don't think there's very much to explain. All wars aim for surrender and most end with settlement instead

Wut? No, "unconditional surrender" is not a normal military objective, virtually all wars have some limited aims from the start. Maybe that's just American experience because you routinely fight for regime extermination against weak or non-state actors?

You might as well say that all wars aim at genocide and end with limited death. This is not the case, people mostly go to war for, like, a specific finite piece of territory.