Israel's Channel 12 is reporting that Israeli officials believe Supreme Leader Khamenei, his advisers, and those responsible for the nuclear program have been assassinated, though the truth of this claim is unverified.

Khamenei's power structure is less a pyramid with him at the apex and more a series of pillars going in different directions, suggesting regime power is distributed among multiple centers rather than purely personalistic.

The US and Israeli military buildup around Iran over months followed the same pattern as the Venezuela buildup, where extensive naval, air, and marine presence preceded strikes by weeks or months.

Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, were pressuring Trump to hold off on Iran strikes, with their preference being to avoid a major war breaking out in the region.

Rob Malley, Obama's and Biden's point man on Iran and lead JCPOA negotiator, predicted that by the end of a recent podcast either a nuclear deal would be announced or Trump would order strikes on Iran's military and political targets, reflecting the unpredictable binary outcomes of Trump's approach.

Another scenario is an anti-regime technocratic US-backed government takeover, which could trigger an insurgency by former regime elements—the Iraq problem where Ba'athists kicked out then mounting insurgency against the new government.

The past reluctance to attack Iran under Obama and Biden was due to two main concerns: worry about Iran's proxies (particularly the 100,000-missile Hezbollah force in Lebanon) and the Houthis and Shia militias, plus fear of Iran's own missile response, nuclear program acceleration, and potential to unleash war in the Middle East.

Ammar al-Shishani, interviewed by Aristes, is part of the anti-Iranian force and has taken over Syria from Bashar al-Assad, collapsing the entire infrastructure of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Syria.

One can simultaneously believe the Iranian regime is truly evil and deserves to be overthrown, while also believing Trump's execution is reckless, stupid, ill-planned, and has very high probability of failing.

The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) nuclear deal done under Obama was a pretty good deal, and Trump hated it because it was done by Obama, reflecting Trump's narcissistic focus on himself rather than merits of policy.

Iran is an issue and country that has bedeviled US presidents and world leaders for decades, and only with some kind of joint cooperative approach can real progress be made, not through unilateral military action.

Contested borders created by people drawing lines on maps at different times (Pakistan-Afghanistan, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Iranian borders with Azerbaijan, Kurdish regions, Baluch regions) contain populations that believe they should be in a different country, creating ongoing conflict potential.

Germany was informed about the strikes (according to reporting of Der Spiegel) and Marles was due to go to Washington, but it's unclear whether the British government was informed before the strikes occurred.

A citizens assembly composed of demographically representative, randomly selected UK citizens could serve as an advisory third branch that could push back legislation deemed harmful, with the possibility of forcing a secret ballot revote

Brexit is a major policy gap that the UK's main political parties have failed to address, and reopening the idea of a customs union with the EU would be a significant political opportunity

The world of AI leadership is extremely small and tightly interconnected, with major players having known each other for 15-20 years, many from Stanford, and many previously involved in PayPal

Stewart supports compulsory voting but opposes lowering the voting age below 18, arguing that there is inconsistency in requiring age 18+ for military deployment but lower for voting

MPs in schools express strong support for lowering the voting age, and Stewart dismisses this as evidence of the popularity strategy rather than a genuine policy position

Stewart proposes applying John Major's Nolan Principles of public life to all MPs with an external judge as arbiter, to improve parliamentary standards of conduct

The key issue with MPs' second jobs is conflict of interest rather than salary amount, particularly when the work involves lobbying or contracts with entities that relate to the MP's public role