The road to 100k

Until today, I had only had five weeks in my life when I have been able to run more than 100 kilometres. With a real feel temperature of -20 degrees outside, I felt that another half marathon out to the airport in order to repeat this feat would be playing with hypothermia so I ended up cutting my morning run short. This however left me with a nagging 11 more kilometres to run to reach the 100 km milestone. Luckily, I was able to get into the nicest gym in Kiruna for an afternoon treadmill run and some strength training so now I can with good conscience put a sixth 100k week behind me.

Listening to the BBC on my run, I was thinking that while we cannot say anything definite about the drone killing of Qassem Suleimani as we do not have all the intelligence, the basic trajectory of US policy in the Middle East under Trump remains as counter-productive as ever. Instead of integrating Iran into the world economy and building on the progress of the 2015 nuclear deal, America is again creating more chaos and instability. Even if there would be regime change in Teheran (which I find even less likely now when the country finds itself pushed against the wall), the last decade in the Middle East and Africa should have made it clear that the real question is not whether authoritarian leaders can be toppled as what will follow in the ensuing power vacuum.