BRAHM Newsletter is back after a hiatus, and the first piece connects three things that don’t usually appear in the same sentence: the Lion and Sun flag flying on Tehran campuses this week, Lisa Randall on Epstein’s jet, and Trump’s noose-without-tightening strategy on Iran.

The argument is simple. Both the Iranian clerical class and the American academic establishment ran the same transaction; moral authority traded quietly for proximity to power. When that transaction becomes visible, as it has in both cases, the institution doesn’t recover quickly. Trump, whatever one thinks of him, has understood this about Iran in a way his predecessors didn’t. He is letting the regime exhaust itself.

BP readers will recognise the geopolitical thread. The BRAHM audience is wider and less South-Asia-focused. While written for them, the analysis however will be familiar here.

→ Iran Is Burning From Within. Trump Didn’t Light the Match — But He’s Holding It. Just Like He Did With Harvard.