Tea at Trianon: Understanding Iran’s Apocalyptic Threat

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, April 9, 2026

Understanding Iran’s Apocalyptic Threat

From Tierney's Real News:

We all know the danger of Iran getting a nuclear weapon—it’s a nightmare scenario that could change the world overnight. A detonation would not just endanger Israel, but could rain radioactive fallout across Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and beyond. Prevailing winds would carry lethal poison across the Middle East, crippling the region and reshaping civilization as we know it.
Iran is no longer just a regional menace — it’s a global one. Advances in its missile program now give Tehran the ability to mount a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe — and, in time, even the eastern United States. A single launch could erase cities and usher in a new dark age.
Yet Iran stands out as uniquely dangerous in the region and the world - not because of its ancient Persian heritage or the Iranian people themselves, who once thrived under the Shah. Under the Shah, Iran was a prosperous ally of America and Israel. Women were free and the nation’s oil wealth funded growth.
What replaced that modern Persian confidence was something horrifying: Ayatollah Khomeini’s fusion of apocalyptic Twelver Shia Islam and atheist Soviet-style Communism. He combined them together in what is known as the Twelver Shia version of Islamo-Communism. It’s this “red‑green” hybrid — part cleric, part commissar — that makes Iran uniquely dangerous in the 21st century. (Read more.)