The myth of Trump's invulnerability has persisted since 2016 and into 2020. Some are still speculating that "this could be in Trump's favor". The powerful have such a track record in exploiting chaos that sometimes we wonder if anything can hurt them. This is self-gaslighting.
I can't see any universe in which this is "good for Trump". First of all, he could get very sick and even die. He's a 74 yr old obese man with a stressful life. He won't be able to campaign during the critical last month. He'll be tweeting, unless he gets too sick for that.
Worst for Trump, this puts his incompetence and recklessness and stupidity on full display. He couldn't protect himself, let alone the country. He couldn't test his own staff, let alone the country. He played fast & loose with the virus and so did his family.
He mocked masks, to the point that rejecting masks has become one of the distinguishing features of his base. He even mocked masks during the debates a couple nights ago. He mocked scientists and spread disinformation - and now he needs the best scientists to keep him healthy.
The election is in just 32 days. He won't be able to hold rallies, he won't be able to go to meetings or town halls, he won't be able to come back from his terrible debate performance with a new one. He won't be able to travel. He won't be able to meet anybody.
And all that's assuming he doesn't get so sick that Pence has to run the country. And even that's assuming that Pence didn't contract the virus (at 61 years old, Pence is a senior citizen too). Funny that if both the president and vice president are incapacitated, it's Pelosy.
We also don't know how many other members of Trump's inner circle were infected. They all came on that same flight and didn't wear masks. If the Trump children got infected it means they have to also quarantine and can't do campaign events on their father's behalf.
We don't know which of these scenarios will play out, but until things clarify, expect Trump to sit in front of a TV and rage-tweet. I just hope Biden & his team test negative - if safe, they could be running loops around Trump while he's quarantined (or sick).
Now this will come as no shock but a key core of the Trump base (rather, the Trump cult) will continue to support him. Understand, it's not just about Trump but about what Trump represents for them. They will not let reality disavow them of the necessity of a Trump figure.

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Keep Current with İyad el-Baghdadi | إياد البغدادي

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More from @iyad_elbaghdadi

Mar 16
Some disorganized notes:

Re: How this war ends, it's clear that Iran is going for attrition, something the IRGC is good at, and the math works in their favor.

Meanwhile, it's not clear what the US is going for in terms of a threshold that would count as "victory".
It's also clear that short of bringing about regime change - which even the US and Israel have quietly acknowledged isn't gonna happen - Iran will retain its ability to block the Straits of Hormuz. Given the geography, it doesn't take much to disrupt shipping there.
Re Trump pressuring NATO allies to join his war - the fact is that even if every country stupidly sends its navy to the Straits, this will just pull in more countries without changing the dynamic. The French + British + Australians won't manage to do something the US can't.
Read 12 tweets
Mar 10
In almost every way this war is becoming an absolutely catastrophic disaster and a humiliating strategic defeat for the United States. This could, relative to its scale & cost, go down as the worst planned, worst managed, worst executed war in modern US history.
Trump keeps issuing threats even as his admin are desperately trying to get the Iranians to answer the phone to agree on a way to deescalate. He doesn't get it - the Iranian government is no longer in any mood to take his bluster. They control the escalatory ladder now.
Just today we know:
- Iranian boats are starting to mine the Straits of Hormuz
- US is giving away its strategic position in Asia just to keep this war afloat
- In both the Gulf countries and Israel, more missiles/drones are getting through without interception or warning
Read 6 tweets
Mar 6
Here's a megathread on the war on Iran that focuses on the deeper dynamics, potential trajectories, and likely outcomes.

A lot will change over the next few weeks - this thread is about what won't.

Stay until the end for an announcement & an invitation. Image
Most geopolitical analysis is cold and state-centric. Here, we look at the longer arcs and what they mean for the prospects for collective liberation and systems change.

This is geopolitics for liberation.
Let me start by saying that all the main actors here are awful:
- Israel is a genocidal apartheid state
- Trump is an incompetent, corrupt warmonger
- Iran's regime is a brutal, repressive theocracy

God bless and save the people of the region, they're the hope for change.
Read 75 tweets
Jul 20, 2025
Israel is historically unique in that it struts like a hegemon but survives like a colony. It dominates its region militarily and psychologically, yet is so critically dependent on foreign support that if the lifeline is cut, the entire structure starts to collapse.
No state in modern history combines such regional dominance with such strategic dependence. Israel wields power like an empire, but lives like a protectorate - it can't sustain its supremacy without continuous Western military, economic, and diplomatic support.
To be clear, Israel is *not* a colony in key ways:
- It has no metropole
- It is sovereign and self-governing
- It exports ideology and security doctrine
- Its elite wield global influence
- It wasn't built for extraction but for replacement
Read 8 tweets
Jul 16, 2025
Israel will never accept a sovereign, strong Syria. No amount of "goodwill signals" will change that, they’ll only be read as weakness and invite more aggression. Israel looks only at your capacity, never your intent. Its doctrine is security through mass devastation.
This government wasted months on appeasement while Israel bombed Syria 1000+ times, occupied ~200 sq km of land, inflamed sectarian tensions, this on top of its longstanding occupation of the Golan. Appeasement didn’t buy time or security. It sent a signal of weakness.
Accept reality or be crushed by it: Syria's main enemy isn't Hezbollah or Iran, it's Israel. Signaling "shared enemies" while it's murdering your people and occupying your land wasn't just naive, it was malpractice and an insult to strategy and to memory.
ynetnews.com/article/hk00bz…
Read 7 tweets
Jul 6, 2025
Here's a thread about Netanyahu's calculus for regional recalibration in the aftermath of the 12-day war with Iran.

Netanyahu is due to meet Trump tomorrow, and a lot might change - this is a thread about what won't
When Israel launched its war on Iran mid-June, I had said it's Netanyahu's war. Yes, it was also Israel's war, another war of consensus. But Netanyahu doesn't do anything unless it helps him politically.

This is a map of the parameters.
As many of you know, Netanyahu has faced mounting legal troubles for years. He's been indicted on charges of corruption and abuse of power. Long story short, he needs to be in power to stay out of prison.
Read 37 tweets

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