Republic of Palantir

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Iran Turns Tables on Israel-USA

On May 4, Donald Trump swore that Iran would be “blown off the face of the earth” if it didn’t immediately restore maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s genocidal fulminations have become familiar.  Late last month, he predicted that “a whole civilization will die” if Iran doesn’t do what he wants. Weeks earlier, Trump vowed to send Iran “back to the Stone Ages” (plural) if Iran didn’t lower its neck to US-Israeli imperialism.

Well, Iran doesn’t seem to be listening.

Indeed, according to numerous informed observers outside the Trump Administration, the Islamic Republic has actually turned the tables on Israel-USA, scoring what many see as a strategic victory over the conjoined entity.

To catch up on the current situation, the GPM reached out to Arang Keshavarzian, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. Keshavarzian is the author of Bazaar and State in Iran: Politics of the Tehran Marketplace (2007), Geographies and Histories of the Iranian Revolution (2021), and Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East (2024).

Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Watch our complete conversation here:

Boys will be boys. Tech Bros certainly will.

While Donald Trump and his crusading Christian warrior chief, Pete Hegseth, vow to rain hellfire on Iran, Silicon Valley ‘titans’ pronounce on how they intend to rule the world, backed by AI-based surveillance and weapon systems.

Over a mid-April weekend, AI wunderkind Alex Karp, founder of the surveillance giant Palantir, posted a 22-point manifesto about all this. Like most pompous pronouncements, Alex Karp’s bursts with Big Narrative.

The “Technological Republic” owes a “moral debt” to America and the world, and “free email” won’t cover the bill. Civilizational decadence must be squashed, says Karp, along with “vacant and hollow pluralism,” and the “dysfunctional and regressive” belief that all cultures are equal. (They’re not, says Karp)

Karp’s fixes? AI-based military deterrence, obligatory “national duty” (as if humans have something to offer in his dystopian future), reinvigorated religious faith at upper state echelons … and the remilitarization of Germany and Japan.

Inevitably, Alex Karp’s manifesto has drawn fire. Among those speaking out, a group of academics at the University of Ottawa. David Murakami Wood is one of them.

David Murakami Wood is Professor of Criminology in U. Ottawa’s Faculty of Social Sciences, and Canada Research Chair in Critical Surveillance and Security Studies. His research focuses on emerging AI-based “smart cities”, private surveillance companies, AI regulation, and the relationship between surveillance and the climate crisis.

Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Watch our complete conversation here: