A reply to Benny Morris’s “The Battle for the Strait.”

Benny Morris provides a clear and persuasive account of a campaign that failed to achieve its stated strategic aims. His conclusion—that the war weakened Iran without resolving its core threats—seems difficult to dispute.

But his analysis also raises a deeper question that remains unaddressed. Are we looking at a failure of execution—or at a structural limit on what war can accomplish under current conditions?

The scale of the campaign matters here. This was not a tentative or limited engagement. It involved thousands of strikes, overwhelming air superiority, and sustained pressure on Iran’s military and industrial infrastructure. And yet, even under these conditions, it did not produce a decisive political outcome.

This suggests that the problem may not lie primarily in how the war was fought, but in what modern war is capable of achieving. Military power can still degrade capabilities and impose costs. But it appears increasingly unable to produce the kinds of decisive outcomes—regime change, disarmament, strategic submission—that once defined victory.

If that is the case, then the language of “success” and “failure” in this context may be misleading. We may be applying categories that no longer correspond to the realities of power, constraint, and legitimacy in contemporary conflict.

—Allen Zeesman

A reply to Brian Stewart’s “Hasan Piker Is the Enemy.”

Strong piece, and right to raise the question of what a political coalition legitimises when it embraces figures whose rhetoric openly celebrates illiberal causes. But the deeper problem may be less Hasan Piker himself than the institutional weakness that makes parties feel they need him.

When established political parties, media organisations, and civic institutions lose authority, they increasingly outsource reach and energy to influencers they do not control. That is not simply a moral failure. It is a structural one. A party confident in its own persuasive capacity does not need to rent legitimacy from streamers, podcasters, or online personalities.

So yes, liberals should think carefully about the boundaries of tolerance. But they should also ask why those boundaries are now being negotiated on Twitch and YouTube rather than within strong parties, trusted publications, and serious civic institutions.

The real warning sign is not that Hasan Piker exists. Every society produces demagogues, provocateurs, and ideological entrepreneurs. The warning sign is that major political actors increasingly believe they cannot compete without them.

—Allen Zeesman