By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 3 May 2025
Muhammad al-Sudani has been Iraq’s Prime Minister since October 2022. He was installed at Iran’s behest after a year-long political logjam following the 2021 Iraqi elections. The political fronts for Iran’s terrorist-militias lost those elections, but Tehran picked the Prime Minister anyway.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 February 2025
When Septimius Severus became Roman Emperor in 193 AD, his wife, whom he had married in 187, was Julia Domna, a native of Emesa (now Homs), meaning Rome had its first Syrian Empress.
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 February 2025
The written biographies of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (r. 218-22 AD) claim that he oversaw an effort to replace the traditional gods with the Syrian sun god of which he was the high priest, and that this was part of the reason he was overthrown. There is, however, no physical evidence for an Elagabalan religious revolution, and we have an idea of the kinds of evidence that should show up where a ruler has tried to impose a new religious dispensation and it has been rejected by his successors because we have counter-examples.
