President
Trump announced that Israel and the US-backed Lebanese government have
agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, which is set to go into effect at midnight
in Beirut tonight. This, after immense pressure from Iran to include
Lebanon in the overall ceasefire, and after the IDF failed to accomplish
any of Israel’s goals with its war on south Lebanon.
Journalist
and Lawyer Dimitri Lascaris noted that we have seen no evidence that
the U.S. is finished with its overall war on Iran, and it’s likely the
ceasefire in Lebanon will be used to buy more time, as the U.S. and
Israel prepare for their next attack.
Patrick Henningsen discusses why Trump holds no cards as his negotiating team stares down the abject humiliation of defeat and disaster brought on by their war on Iran.
Iran has announced that it will honor US President Donald Trump's proposal for a ceasefire lasting two weeks. However, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi announced two conditions for this ceasefire to hold. The statement by Araghchi made it clear that Iran would continue to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Rifat Jawaid looks at the events that led to this major announcement by both parties.
In Part 1, we established what happens when wrongdoing metastasizes — when the infection has spread so deep that the person has functionally chosen not to be corrected. Now we get clinical about what that actually looks like in practice.
The symptoms fall into two clusters. The first is epistemic: a severing from the truth. Denial, obfuscation, redefinition, deceit — not as deliberate choices, necessarily, but as the cascading consequence of a heart that has been covered, mark by mark, until it can no longer perceive reality accurately. The Quran names this directly. So did al-Ghazali.
The second cluster is relational: argumentativeness, manipulation, provocation, temptation. And here's what you need to understand — none of it is actually about the topic being discussed. It never is. Every exchange with someone in this state is a contest for one thing: validating their condition and transmitting it to you.
That transmission is the real danger. When you accept the distorted account. When you argue on their terms. When you lose your composure and respond in kind. Each of those is a vector. Each of those is how the condition gets into you.
And then we scale it. Because everything described here — the epistemic corruption, the relational destabilization, the transmission mechanics — doesn't only apply to individuals. It applies to institutions. To media systems. To entire civilizations. And the West is exactly this picture, at scale.
Part 2 of a multi-part episode. Continues in Episode 10.
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump panicking as Iran not only rejects his fake negotiating deadlines but Iran is now demanding Trump surrender.
The standoff in the Middle East has reached a critical breaking point.
Iran just turned down a US-backed ceasefire, demanding nothing less than
a definitive end to hostilities. With the final Tuesday deadline
nearing, President Trump has threatened the total 'decimation' of Iran's
energy infrastructure if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. As Tehran
stands its ground—insisting the strait is only shut to its
enemies—Rifat Jawaid weighs the cost of a long-term war amidst a global
energy crisis.