Foreign Affairs Study: Majority Instinct on Iran Is Restraint A review of existing polling finds Americans skeptical and confused over Iran strikes. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images) A report made available to The American Conservative by Rethink Media’s Research and Analysis Team on public attitudes toward the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iran shows that most Americans still prefer diplomacy in dealing with the Islamic Republic when possible. “Restraint remains a majoritarian instinct,” per Rethink Media’s review.  Although the “Iran strikes produced a short-lived rally effect,” the data demonstrate that “Americans entered the crisis favoring diplomacy and ended it divided, with increasing doubts about the strikes’ effectiveness.”  An Economist/YouGov poll before the strikes revealed that a majority of Americans — 61 percent — favored negotiations with Iran, while only 19 percent opposed them. While the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and other proponents of the military action view the strikes as a successful deterrent to Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons ambitions, large numbers of Americans remain unconvinced; in a University of Maryland/Ipsos poll conducted after the U.S. bombing of Iran, only 30 percent said the strikes made Iran less likely to develop nuclear weapons, while 30 percent said the strikes made it more likely. The report, which aggregated data from multiple polling firms, also recognizes that, while “Republican and older male audiences” are “more likely to favor deterrence or strength-based” approaches to Iran, “younger Americans were consistently less supportive of military action and more likely to express fear of escalation.” In one CBS/YouGov poll conducted immediately after the strikes, a mere 32 percent of American adults under 30 signaled their approval, compared with 54 percent of Americans age 65 and up. If most Americans were skeptical of bombing Iran, why did so many Republicans initially embrace the strikes? Rethink’s report attributes the spike largely to “partisan reflexes.” When CNN asked whether respondents “approve or disapprove of President Trump’s decision to take military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities,” 78 percent of Republicans approved. Yet when Economist/YouGov asked during the same period whether the United States “should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities” — without naming Trump — Republican support dropped to 57 percent, indicating that some Republican responses were driven less by enthusiasm for a new war than by loyalty to Trump. Another factor, unmentioned by the analysis team yet undoubtedly influential, was the Israel lobby’s long media campaign to convince Americans that Iran and its nuclear program, which is perpetually “weeks” or “months away” from producing a bomb, pose a threat to the United States. Their claims ignored a March 2025 report released by Tulsi Gabbard’s Department of National Intelligence, which determined that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Independents did not have the same partisan reflex as Republicans and Democrats; their views fluctuated, about 20 points depending on whether the strikes were framed as “bombing” or as “launching airstrikes on nuclear facilities,” demonstrating more than anything else the confusion of an American public that was never told why the United States was bombing Iran or what the objective was in the first place. Their uncertainty grew instantly, and spread beyond independents; within days, more Americans believed Israel benefited from the strikes than believed the United States did. According to a University of Maryland/Ipsos poll cited in the study, only 21 percent of Americans thought the attacks advanced U.S. interests at all, while 30 percent said they mainly helped Israel. Even among Republicans, a relatively narrow majority, 55 percent, believed the strikes reduced the risk of Iran getting a bomb. The propaganda campaign that preceded the Iran strikes, the temporary spike in public support they produced, and the rapid ebb in enthusiasm echoed the Iraq War. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion, majorities of Americans told Pew they believed Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, was tied to terrorism, and had even helped orchestrate 9/11. That war’s popularity reached a peak of 74 percent support at the time of Bush’s “Missions Accomplished” speech, before plummeting on a consistent trajectory every year since, as Americans realized they had been deceived and bankrupted. By 2019, most Americans, including 64 percent of U.S. veterans, concluded the war had not been worth fighting. If Trump truly believes the Iraq War was one of the greatest U.S. foreign policy disasters, he should rediscover the instinct for negotiation that set him apart from the neoconservatives he defeated. The post Study: Majority Instinct on Iran Is Restraint appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs On Venezuela, Trump Should Take the Money and Run If this is in fact just a “pressure campaign,” let’s take the concessions and call it. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images) As I wrote some months ago, if you don’t like this administration’s policies, wait 15 minutes. In the sort of off-the-cuff statement that leads policy, President Donald Trump told a press gaggle Sunday that the U.S. might be back to talks with Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro: “We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out, but they would like to talk.” This confirmed an anonymous official’s comment in a November 14 New York Times piece, which asserted that talks were (the Times’ words) “not entirely dead.” There appear to be various proposals about Maduro voluntarily leaving power floating around, although it’s not clear what would replace him, or how. (It’s also not clear how seriously to take these stories; the leaks are coming from the American side, where there are a variety of plausible motives for getting momentum behind the Maduro voluntary retirement/exile narrative.)  This all is not to say that negotiations and the diplomatic offramp are unambiguously back on. There’s still a lack of clarity about what’s going on down there. The USS Gerald Ford joined the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group and miscellaneous other assets in the Caribbean. This confab even has a silly name, which shows that the Pentagon is taking it very seriously—“Operation Southern Spear.” The administration is expected to put the “Cartel de los Soles” on the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations, which is the traditional American prelude to bombing someone, especially if the “organization” in question isn’t really an organization as such. The president has reportedly signed off on the CIA conducting covert operations in Venezuela, which is a charming concession to the official fiction that the CIA doesn’t just do whatever it wants in Latin America anyway.  We have been assured that this all is just a pressure campaign, that it’s “regime collapse,” which is very different from “regime change,” that in fact there’s a very well-tuned and reactive program, and it’s just very secret. This would be more convincing if the administration didn’t leak like the Titanic around 2am. If there were a plan, we’d know about it. (Indeed, the administration would probably tell us about it! It’s not as if the White House is shy about PR when it has a grand plan to show off.) But this is only a sideways criticism. If the White House doesn’t really know what it’s going to do, that means a military adventure isn’t a foregone conclusion. If the U.S. cuts a deal with Maduro, good; it is a good thing for reason to prevail at the White House. There are real, material interests for the U.S. in Venezuela, and it would be a great coup if these could be met short of rolling the dice on regional stability. If the administration insists that this was “the plan” the whole time, so be it, although one can’t help but wonder whether the whole thing could have been accomplished without the plentiful, flagrant lying to the American people and the dubiously legal footwork that has attended it. Refocusing American attention on the Western Hemisphere is the flavor of the week, and a welcome one at that. (How many times have you seen military assets leaving CENTCOM, let alone to serve SOUTHCOM?) But the reorientation of American foreign policy should not be solely a matter of changing theaters; it should account for the failures of that foreign policy’s recent history, for the fact that resorting to force is always a gamble, that the U.S. in fact has only a limited ability to dictate conditions outside its own borders, that sometimes a power vacuum is worse than a corrupt state. (This is not to mention the damaging effects of interventionism on a notionally republican polity.) The problem hasn’t just been that American foreign policy has focused on faraway lands that do not much pertain to American interests. It has been that the policy itself has been based on shoddy analysis and badly executed. We can do better. There is in fact a point at which a “pressure campaign” must stop if it is to remain a pressure campaign rather than a war. The success of further escalation, say by strikes on Venezuelan territory or obviously American “covert” operations, is not a foregone conclusion; the failure of such measures will tend to demand more and more force, and will not necessarily make Caracas more liable to negotiate. Trump has a chance, a chance of finite scope and duration, to prove that he is in fact finding a new way for American foreign policy—that rational statesmanship, not reliance on force backed by blind luck, is a viable course. The saber has been rattled; let it remain sheathed. Let’s liven up those channels that are “not entirely dead.” Let’s have the deal. The post On Venezuela, Trump Should Take the Money and Run appeared first on The American Conservative.

Back where they belong. The post The one show that made Bruce Springsteen reform The E Street Band first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The chaotic confrontation in Dearborn, Michigan, on Tuesday — when a demonstrator attempted to burn a Qur’an and Muslim counter-protesters surged — was more than a brief flash of drama. Along with other recent controversies in Arab-majority Dearborn, such as when the Muslim mayor told a Christian minister he “was not welcome here” and was an “Islamophobe” for objecting to renaming a local street after a Hezbollah-supporting journalist, this latest cultural skirmish yet again underscores longstanding concerns about America’s immigration regime — and, above all, the nature of American identity itself. What, exactly, is an American? It’s a question that was increasingly on my friend Charlie Kirk’s mind in what tragically proved to be his final months. And in light of the Dearborn fracas and the recent election of Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of America’s most iconic metropolis, it’s a question that has never been more pressing. (RELATED: Trivializing Religion Left Us Unprepared for Political Islam) The narrow, legal answer is straightforward: An American is a citizen of the United States, born or naturalized. That definition undergirds equal protection, sets the parameters of the franchise, and helps define the various obligations citizens owe and the rights we enjoy. But that technical legal definition is unedifying and wildly insufficient. A passport can inform which government recognizes us on paper. But it doesn’t tell us what holds the nation together, what binds disparate strangers into a people, and what shared implicit assumptions make the American experiment workable rather than a Groundhog Day-style recurring melee of clashing worldviews. Since the origins of the republic, the United States has always had a legal identity and a cultural one. The legal identity is broader, permitting more inclusivity. New arrivals on our shores can relinquish foreign allegiances, acquire American citizenship, and become part of “We the People,” much as the biblical figure Ruth left the nation of Moab thousands of years ago to join the children of Israel. As Ruth said: “Your people shall be my people and your God my God.” America has always had a dominant public ethos shaped by a historical Protestant-majority culture. But the cultural identity of the United States — the religiously imbued habits, values, and expectations that enable our national creed, “E Pluribus Unum” — has never been infinitely malleable. America has always had a dominant public ethos shaped by a historical Protestant-majority culture. This culture emphasizes individual responsibility, industriousness, respect for the rule of law, the dignity of conscience, and the limits of liberty rightly understood. The two identities are connected. As President John Adams famously said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Conscience and freedom of religion must be wholly protected and secured in one’s private life, but the very nature of American citizenship and American community are shaped and guided by the inherited tradition of the Protestant majority. It was true at the time of founding, and it’s still true today. Take it from me: I’m an observant Jew who cherishes the fact that America has always been exceptional not in spite of but in large part due to that culturally dominant Hebrew Bible/Old Testament-heavy Protestant inheritance. The United States was never a “blank slate” society. Like any nation, it has a distinct inheritance, and it has always relied on a broad cultural consensus: Someone can bring their own private customs and traditions to America, but they are expected to assimilate into the public framework that has always made the country coherent — “out of many, one.” And that public framework is not merely a technical or legalistic one but a “thicker” one where acceptance of such notions as the proverbial “Protestant work ethic” constitute a core part of American citizenship. The challenge in Dearborn — and elsewhere — is that too many distinct cultural communities now reject this framework. It wasn’t always this way. My own ancestors, Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, readily understood that they had to learn the English language and acculturate themselves to the nation’s longstanding Protestant-informed public ways of life. Laws alone cannot create broad solidarity; only culture can do so. We should also not be hesitant to say that American Muslim assimilation, specifically, is not going well at this time. A poll of American Muslims taken less than three weeks after the barbaric Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel found that 57.5 percent of American Muslims believed the atrocities were at least “somewhat justified.” Plenty of other shocking examples abound — including the aforementioned troubling antics of Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. The truth is that values such as support for Hamas or Hezbollah are simply incompatible with Americanism — period. So once again, then: What is an American? It is someone who holds citizenship under our law, yes — but also someone who adopts, respects, and participates in the civic, religiously imbued dominant culture that founded and still sustains the republic. That culture is neither rigid nor intrinsically hostile to reasonable diversity, but it is certainly not infinitely elastic either. And it requires conscientious assimilation into a framework that alone makes ordered liberty possible. Citizenship is a status. But being an American in its fullest sense is something much greater and more rewarding: It is partaking in a common civilization, accepting its responsibilities, and upholding the dominant inherited way of life. That doesn’t seem to be happening in Dearborn — or in far too many other places throughout the country. A free people — and a free nation — lets that trend fester at its own grave peril. READ MORE from Josh Hammer: The Next Social Epidemic Is Already Here: Legalized Sports Gambling It’s Still the Economy, Stupid Reject Radical Mamdani: NYC Mayor Race Has National Ramifications To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM

In most cases, a band has to rule its home turf before it conquers the world. That’s exactly what The Cars. did. In ’77, amid the disco onslaught, a demo version of “Just What I Needed” became the most requested song on a local (Boston) Rock radio station. The following lists The Cars Top 10 songs with the parent album it’s from and the year or release. 10. You’re All I’ve Got Tonight – The Cars (1978) “Ric Ocasek’s got a knack for taking a common phrase like ‘You’re All I’ve Got Tonight’ and making a great song out of it,” noted keyboardist Greg Hawkes, You’re All I Got Tonight 9. Tonight She Comes – Greatest Hits (1985) Ocasek had originally intended to save this song for his solo career. However, it was recorded as a standalone single. Ocasek recalled, “That was like a one-off single that we just all came together and did.” The Cars Greatest Hits Tonight She Comes 8. My Best Friend’s Girl – The Cars (1978) “Nothing in that song happened to me personally,” stated Ocasek, the song’s writer. “I just figured having a girlfriend stolen was probably something that happened to a lot of people.” My Best Friend’s Girl 7. Let’s Go – Candy-O (1979) The song’s hook was inspired by The Routers, an early ’60’s instrumental group, who recorded a song titled “Let’s Go!” The debut single from “Candy-O,” was a chart success, reaching #14 in the United States and charting in multiple other countries. Vocals were performed by bassist Benjamin Orr. Candy-O Let’s Go 6. Good Times Roll – The Cars (1978) “That was my song about what the good times in Rock ‘n’ Roll really mean, instead of what they’re supposed to be,” shared Ocasek. “It was kind of a parody of good times, really. It was kinda like not about good times at all.” Let The Good Times Roll 5. Shake It Up – The Cars (1978) “(The song was) “kicking around for years,” remembered drummer David Robinson. “It never sounded good. We recorded it a couple of times in the studio and dumped it, and we were going to try it one more time, and I was fighting everybody . . . So we thought, let’s start all over again, like we’ve never even heard it—completely change every part—and we did. Then, when it was through and all put back together, it was like a brand-new song.” Shake It Up 4. You Might Think – Heartbeat City (1984) It was the band’s first song to top Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart and peaked at #7 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The accompanying video won the first MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year (1984) and was nominated for five more awards (Best Special Effects, Best Art Direction, Viewer’s Choice, Best Concept Video and Most Experimental Video). Heartbeat City You Might Think 3. Just What I Needed – The Cars (1978) The track was written by Ocasek. “I remember hearing ‘Just What I Needed,’ thinking … ‘Wow, that’s pretty cool,” offered Hawkes. “It’s got something sort of unique about it, it’s like, nice and concise and … fairly short pop song format’ … so I still remember hearing that for the first time.” Just What I Needed 2. Drive – Heartbeat City’ (1984) The album’s third single was written by Ocasek, sung by Orr and produced by John “Mutt” Lange (Def Leppard, AC/DC, Foreigner). “Drive” became The Cars’ highest-charting single in the U.S., reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Drive 1. Bye Bye Love – The Cars (1978) Written by Ocasek, this was another track sung by Orr. It was first performed, and recorded as a demo, by the band Cap’n Swing, which featured Ocasek, Orr, and guitarist Elliot Easton. Bye Bye Love The Cars: Ric Ocasek – Rhythm Guitar/Vocals Elliot Easton– Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals Greg Hawkes – Keyboards/Backing Vocals Bejamin Orr – Bass/Vocals David Robinson – Drums ### The post The Cars Top 10 Songs appeared first on RockinTown.

Having Metallica praise your band is priceless. That’s what happened to the Copenhagen based Volbeat who promoted their third album, “Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood,” by opening for Metallica on their fall ’09 North American trek. That was likely the first time Americans became aware of the group. The story goes back to ’01. And like so many others, it starts with an end; namely Michael Poulsen’s band Dominus. They had recorded an album titled “Vol. Beat.” Vol. being an abbreviation for ‘volume’. For his next group, Poulsen further compressed the name. Joining Poulsen was ex-Dominus guitarist Franz “Hellboss” Gottschalk. But he moved on quickly and was replaced by Teddy Vang. In ’04, Vang was gone and Gottschalk returned. His stay was longer this time around making it to the group’s debut album, “The Strength/The Sound/The Songs.” The ’05 set charted in the group’s native Denmark and went on to win Best Album in the Danish Metal Musik Awards. The following year though, Gottschalk left again with Thomas Bredahl stepping in. Volbeat’s second album “Rock The Rebel/Metal The Devil” (great title) went to #1 in Denmark and achieved gold status in Denmark and Finland. The Metallica connection was first forged when the groups crossed paths at Copenhagen’s Roskilde Festival. ’08 saw “Guitar, Gangsters & Cadillac Blood” set. It topped the Finnish chart and led to the slot on Metallica’s World Magnetic Tour. “We have fast, slow and mid-tempo songs,” said Poulsen of “Beyond Hell/Above Heaven.” “We still blend different styles of Punk, Rock ’n’ Roll, Rockabilly, Metal, Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal, Country – we still keep it very open, it’s just music!” As for the album’s theme, Poulsen added, “Heaven and Hell is something we create in our minds and personal self-created demons come out of that.” The album continued the group’s European winning streak going double platinum in Denmark, platinum in Finland and Germany, and gold in Sweden and Austria. Bredahl, who missed some ’10 U.S. tour dates because he was unable to secure a work visa (due to an arrest record from a barroom brawl), was out of the group in ’11. “Being in a band is in many ways similar to a marriage with ups and downs,”read the group’s statement announcing Bredahl’s departure. “At times you can work it out and sometimes you need to go separate ways… We want to thank him for the work he has put in for Volbeat and we wish him all the best in the future.” Volbeat continued to tour as a trio – or with backing musicians. One group’s loss is another’s gain. Guitarist Rob Caggiano announced his departure from Anthrax in early ’13. He had been with the band from ’01 to ’05 and from ’07 to ’13. Caggiano said he wanted to focus his energies on music production. He and producer Jacob Hansen were already working on Volbeat’s next album. In addition to production work, Caggiano was asked to contribute solos and worked closely with Poulsen. There appeared to be great chemistry between the guitarists. As a result, just a month after Caggiano’s split from Anthrax, news hit that he had joined Volbeat. “The collaboration with Rob in the studio was so inspiring and in good spirit that we the decided to keep him,” said an enthused Poulsen. “Basically, we went into the studio as a three piece and came out as a whole band!” “Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies,” produced by Caggiano and Hansen (who had produced and mixed the group’s last four efforts – from ‘05’s The Strength/The Sound /The Songs” to ‘10’s “Beyond Hell/Above Heaven”), dropped in ’13. The set debuted at #9 on the Billboard 200 but went to #1 in Canada, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark. “This is amazing and something we almost can’t believe,” said Poulsen. Three years later, Volbeat released their sixth full-length album, “Seal The Deal & Let’s Boogie,” in ’16. The set contained “The Devil’s Bleeding Crown.” The Devil’s Bleeding Crown ”Another three years passed before Volbeat’s seventh album, “Rewind, Replay, Rebound,” arrived. The album, which was the first to feature bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen, had, according to their label, the “Psychobilly, Punk-tinged Rock ‘n’ Roll sound (Volbeat) is known for.” From the album, “Last Day Under the Sun,” became Volbeat’s seventh #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs chart. The Danish/American band was now tied with U2 (Ireland) for the most #1’s on the chart by a European act. The deadlock didn’t last long. “Die To Live” was the band’s eighth #1. The album “Servant Of The Mind” dropped in early December of ’21. About six months earlier they released the single “Wait A Minute My Girl,” a short Rock n’ Roll revival track (complete with sax solo and percussive piano) that also topped the Mainstream Rock Songs chart. Die To Live Wait A Minute My Girl The following year, drummer Jon Larsen tested positive for COVID-19. The band continued to tour with Ghost with former Slayer drummer, Jon Dette, filling in until Larsen’s return. Later in the year, the band released a music video for the song “Temple Of Ekur.” Then came the announcement that they had parted ways with lead guitarist Rob Caggiano. “By A Monster’s Hand” was the lead single from “Gods Of Angels Trust,” Volbeat’s ninth studio album, went to the top of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. It was the band’s eleventh song to reach #1 on the chart but first since “Shotgun Blues” in late ’21. By a Monster’s Hand Shotgun Blues “In the past, I’ve taken a long time to write and obsessed over so many elements of the songs before finishing them,” said Poulsen. “This time, I wanted to make a Volbeat record without thinking too much about it.” The effort’s second single was “In the Barn Of The Goat Giving Birth To Satan’s Spawn In Dying World Of Doom.” “I had so much fun writing these lyrics. It’s about the outcasts and fallen angels of God — all the angels that were cast out of Heaven. And I’m being told to collect them in this big wagon and bring them to a barn,” explained Poulsen. “There’s a ritual going on where the fallen angels are being sacrificed to Satan’s spawn to create soldiers for a new dark kingdom.” ### The post Volbeat appeared first on RockinTown.

from The National Pulse: ❓WHAT HAPPENED: The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled religious education and collective worship in Northern Ireland schools unlawful due to their Christian focus. ?WHO WAS INVOLVED: A pupil known as JR87, her father, and the Department of Education were involved. ?WHEN & WHERE: The judgment was delivered on November 19, 2025, in […]