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Articles by Kyle Orton
Not Every Bad Thing Is “Genocide”
Graves of unidentified Ukrainians murdered by the Russian army during occupation of Bucha, 30 March 2023 || Gleb Garanich/Reuters It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. A few days ago, I published a long article about what Azerbaijan calls “the Khojaly genocide” as an exemplar of a false genocide claim that is generated for political reasons.
The Politics of Genocide Recognition: Azerbaijan and Khojaly
Khojaly Genocide Memorial | author photograph One cannot make a direct crossing from Azerbaijan to Armenia, so when making the trip at the end of August I had to go via Georgia. Driving to the Azeri land border with Georgia, the “Red Bridge”, I passed the Khojaly Genocide Memorial, commemorating an event from February 1992.
The Road to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War
Armenian soldiers in the Karabakh during a ceasefire, 19 April 1993 It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. Imperial Russia, under its policy of “defensive expansionism”, conquered a series of Muslim-ruled khanates in the Caucasus from the Qajar Persians in the 1810s and 1820s.
The Arithmetic of the 1915 Armenian Catastrophe
Armenians trekking from Kharberd (Harput) to Syria-Lebanon in 1922 || image source: Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts.
Britain Needs a Tougher Approach to the Iranian Threat
It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. On Sunday morning, an apparent terrorist attack against the Royal Air Force Fairford base was narrowly averted after the arrest of five men in three vans in the village of Whelford.
HAMAS’s Own Gaza Death Toll Statistics Undermine the “Israeli Genocide” Narrative
It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. The above chart, created by the Israel Policy Forum’s Gabriel Epstein, is a summary of the latest Gaza death toll list put out by HAMAS’s “health ministry”.1 The list contains 72,835 names, each a purported fatality incurred between 7 October 2023 and 7 May 2026, and gives a breakdown of the fatalities by age and sex.
Little Saint Hugh, the Blood Libel, and the End of Jewish Life in England
Lincoln Cathedral || author photograph It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. Over the weekend, I visited Lincoln Cathedral and nearly missed a small tomb on the way out. Circling back, I saw it was that of Little Saint Hugh. The name is forgotten now but this eight-year-old boy’s death in 1255 became the basis of a nation-wide anti-Jewish hysteria.
Islamic State Sees Itself Leading People to the Truth Like the Prophets of Old
It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts.
The Propaganda War Was Built Into HAMAS’s 7 October Massacre in Israel
The devastation of 7 October in the Olives neighborhood of Kibbutz Be’eri || January 1, 2024 (Canaan Lidor/Times of Israel) It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have captured many documents during the war with HAMAS and the other elements of the Islamic Revolution in Gaza.
Remembering 9/11 A Quarter-Century Later
Moments after the second plane hit the towers on 11 September 2001 | REUTERS/Sara K. Schwittek I can still remember exactly where I was when I heard about 9/11.
The History Told By the Armenian Genocide Museum
The Sanctuary of Eternity monument | author photograph The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute is within a memorial complex at Tsitsernakaberd (lit. “Swallow’s Fortress”) in Yerevan, which also contains the Sanctuary of Eternity monument and the 140-foot Stele that date back to 1967 when Armenia was part of the Soviet Union and Moscow had just begun to back in earnest the Armenian genocide-recognition movement, within the “Socialist Republic” and in the Armenian diaspora.
Podcast: What Do We Know About the Origins of Islam?
The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built by the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik, a crucial figure in the history of Islam. I recently went on Razib Khan’s podcast to discuss the various historical questions that surround the origins of Islam. The podcast can be found here. The trigger for the discussion was a recent article I wrote about the journey of a Frankish bishop, Arculf, to Jerusalem c.
For the American Left, Getting “Money Out of Politics” Applies to Jews, But Not Islamists
Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan Democratic candidate for the Senate, with Hasan Piker at an event for “content creators” supporting his campaign || Detroit, 3 August 2026, Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP file Read the article over at UnHerd.
Disinformation, Palestinian Terrorism, and the Islamic Revolution in Iran
Tehran during the Islamic Revolution, 7 September 1978 || from image source A previous article documented the crucial role Palestinians played in the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution, training and otherwise assisting the Islamist and Communist terrorists warring against the Shah within the country, and tying together the external coalition that sustained the year-long struggle that concluded with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini being swept to power. The Palestinian role went beyond this, however.
The Sojourn of Arculf: An Eyewitness to “Early Islamic” Jerusalem
An imagining of the “house of prayer” Arculf saw in Arab-ruled Jerusalem c. 680 It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. Roughly between 679 and 682 AD, Arculf, a Frankish bishop,1 undertook a journey in the Near East, through Egypt, the Land of Israel, and Syria—the ancient Christian territories conquered by the Arabs a few decades earlier.
The Sojourn of Arculf: An Eyewitness to “Early Islamic” Jerusalem
An imagining of the “house of prayer” Arculf saw in Arab-ruled Jerusalem c. 680 It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. Roughly between 679 and 682 AD, Arculf, a Frankish bishop,1 undertook a journey in the Near East, through Egypt, the Land of Israel, and Syria—the ancient Christian territories conquered by the Arabs a few decades earlier.
The Labour Party, the Soviets, and Britain’s Worst Unknown Spy Scandal
It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. The Soviet Union’s triumph in the Second World War—enslaving the eastern half of Europe conquered from its former Nazi allies—finally awakened the West to the Cold War waged against it since global Communism acquired Moscow as its headquarters in 1917. The simultaneous realisation was how far behind the West already was.
Has Hitler’s Order for the Holocaust Been Discovered?
In a recent essay on the nature of the Nazi regime, the key underlying dynamic I examined was the way its “polycratic” structure sustained a cumulative radicalisation in ideology and behaviour. The genocide of six million Jews in Europe was the escalation point reached before the Third Reich was demolished, and I went into some detail about how the Nazi system produced this horror. It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication.
Podcast: Trying to Loosen Iran’s Grip on Iraq
Funeral march by “Iraqi” IRGC unit Asaib Ahl al-Haq in Najaf | 2014, Reuters I recently went on Sibylline’s “What Just Happened?” podcast hosted by Marco Giannangeli to discuss the proposals of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to disarm the Shi’a militias that answer to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which is supposed to take place by 30 September 2026, the same date the United States is set to withdraw the last of its troops from Iraq.
The Structure of the Nazi Regime and the Holocaust Decision
The crematorium at Majdanek death camp in Lublin, what was then the German “General Government” and is now Poland || author photograph Fifteen senior Nazis gathered in Berlin on 20 January 1942, at a villa in Wannsee, to discuss the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Some early post-war historiography presented the Wannsee Conference as the decision-point for the Holocaust, but in reality it was a coordination meeting about a decision already taken.
A Story of Germans Behaving Badly in the 1930s
Eden is based on what is called “the Galapagos Affair” in Germany, a strange episode in the early 1930s when eight idealistic Germans gathered on one of the idyllic Ecuadorian islands made famous by Charles Darwin and descended into a slightly mysterious abyss.
Is there Such a Thing as “Too Disgraceful for the International Criminal Court”?
Karim Khan || Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images The scandal surrounding the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, which has ground on for two years, is coming to a head.
The Protocol of the Wannsee Conference
Death Gate at Auschwitz II-Birkenau | author photograph (2024) In the historiography for the first few decades after the Second World War, the 20 January 1942 Wannsee Conference was often portrayed as the moment when the Nazis took the decision to implement the “Final Solution”, that is the extermination of European Jewry. In fact, that decision had been taken and implementation had begun in July-August 1941.
Is Britain Finally Getting Serious About Iranian Terrorism?
Read the article over at UnHerd.
It Can Always Get Worse
Usama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Almost twenty years ago, on 30 June 2006, Usama bin Laden released a eulogy for Ahmad al-Khalayleh, the Jordanian jihadist universally known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the Islamic State movement. A translation of the eulogy is given below.
It Can Always Get Worse
Read the article over at UnHerd.
It Can Always Get Worse
It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. A translation is given below of the main editorial in the 548th edition of Islamic State’s Al-Naba newsletter, published on 21 May 2026.
When Hamburgers were Treason
When Hamburgers were Treason Huge portrait of Syrian president and dictator Hafez al-Assad in Damascus, 1994 via Wikipedia Commons, source: https://hildelundblog.wordpress.com/tag/syria/ tweet share print Maxine Haddad reflects upon growing up in Syria and events of recent decades. She describes how the Assad regime manipulated international isolation and, in particular, the fears of Syrian minorities to maintain their loyalty.
It Can Always Get Worse
Watson and the Shark (1778) It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. If the question is the first (known) shark attack on a human being, archaeology has the answer: a man in Japan, whose 3,000-year-old skeleton has nearly 800 wounds.1 If the question is the first human representation of a shark attack, the current answer is a Greek vase dating to c.
The Supreme Leader (Rahbar-e Mo’azzam) of the Islamic Revolution, Ali Khamenei, was killed on 28 February, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Iran. On 8 March, his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was hastily upgraded to “ayatollah” in regime messaging and appointed as replacement Rahbar. Almost immediately, stories began to circulate that Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public since his elevation, was seriously injured and not in command of the regime.
It Can Always Get Worse
It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. In December 2025, Netflix put out a documentary directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus, Cover-Up, about the life and work of Seymour Hersh, the famous or notorious American investigative journalist. No effort is made to conceal that the makers of Cover-Up are consecrated, long-term fans of Hersh.
It Can Always Get Worse
The 545th edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter, was published on 30 April 2026, and had as its main editorial a polemic against Al-Qaeda for allying with the tribal-separatist Tuaregs in Mali. A translation of the editorial is given below. It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts.
It Can Always Get Worse
Aftermath of the Kishinev pogrom in 1903 It is by now conventional wisdom across ideological lines in the West that it was official policy in Imperial Russia to promote antisemitism as part of a (doomed) strategy to deflect popular resentment away from the Tsarist government and suppress the Revolutionary movement.1 This belief became widespread in Western Europe and the Americas shortly after the pogroms which erupted in the wake of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by socialist...
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Painting by Francisco de Paula Van Halen (1864) of the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in what is now southern Spain on 16 July 1212, a crucial Christian victory during the Reconquista that reversed the Islamic occupation of Iberia. The Arabic word deen (دين)1 is often translated as “religion”, and it does refer to Islam, but this is not the same thing.
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Ottoman soldiers out of Harput in 1915 The argument over whether what happened to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 constitutes genocide is the subject of a forthcoming post. Putting that article together has proven to be partly an engagement with the changing state of academic and public opinion in the West, which has now overwhelming settled on the conclusion that genocide is the correct description.
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I have a piece out in the Manara Magazine of the the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum (MENAF), co-authored with Robert Clark.
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The Armenian revolutionary movement in the Ottoman Empire, which began in the late nineteenth century with the intention of creating a national polity in eastern Anatolia, produced many heroes. Armenians among themselves still celebrate many of them to this day, such as: Andranik Ozanian, AramManukian, Garegin Pastermadjian (Armen Garo), GareginNzhdeh, Drastamat Kanayan (Dro), Arshak Gavafian (Keri), Kevork Chavush, and Hrayr Dzhoghk.
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The 536th edition of Al-Naba, the weekly newsletter of the Islamic State (IS), released on 26 February 2026, had as its main editorial a polemic accusing Al-Qaeda of being co-opted by the Islamic Revolution that rules Iran. The Naba article, entitled, “The Rafidite Co-optation of the Jihadists” (al-Istiqtab al-Rafidi lil-Jihadiyeen), builds off a line in the most recent speech by the official IS spokesman, Abu Hudhayfa al-Ansari, which was given a few days earlier.
It Can Always Get Worse
Aftermath of the arson attack on the Hatzola ambulances in the car park of the Machzike Hadath Synagogue in north London || photo credit: Getty Read the article over at UnHerd.
It Can Always Get Worse
Abu Hudhayfah al-Ansari, the official spokesman of the Islamic State (IS) since August 2023, gave his fourth speech on 21 February 2026. The title of the speech, “The Right Guidance Stands Clearly Distinct from Error”, is drawn from the Qur’an (2:256). A brief summary and a translation of the speech are given below. It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts.
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A previous article looked at the terrorist infrastructure, sustained by Palestinians and centred on Lebanon, which formed the crucial external support system for the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution in Iran that brought down the Shah and ushered Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini into power. There was, however, a parallel network supporting the Iranian Revolution in Lebanon. In Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years (2006), Houchang E. Chehabi and Hassan I.
The New Supreme Leader and the Continuity of the Islamic Revolution
Read the article over at UnHerd.
Trump and Iran: What Are We Doing Here?
Aftermath of Israeli airstrikes on Iranian oil refineries in Tehran || Atta Kenare/AFP Since the United States, supported by Israel, launched the military operation—or “limited combat operation” or intervention or war, as you prefer—against the Islamic Revolution that rules Iran on 28 February, the intended purpose has been rather difficult to pin down. It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber.
Iran’s Subversive Activities in Britain Have Gone on Long Enough
Read the article over at The Telegraph.
Gavriil Korganov, Russia, and the Ottoman-Armenians
Gavriil Korganov, whose name is sometimes Anglicised as Gabriel Korganov, was born on 3 May 1880 in Tiflis in the Russian Empire, what is now Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia. Korganov was from a military family and joined the Tiflis Cadet Corps in 1897. Two years later, Korganov enrolled in the Mikhailovskaya Military Artillery Academy in Saint Petersburg and went on to the General Staff Academy. Korganov would become a General in the Imperial Russian Army.
Britain must take on the Iranian enemy within
While the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was celebrated inside Iran, some groups and individuals in Britain have declared themselves to be in mourning - AFP Since 1979, the West has struggled to accept that the Iranian regime is not a normal government but the central node of a transnational revolution – essentially an Islamic Soviet Union, with the same relentless infiltration and political warfare that characterised what Ronald Reagan aptly described as the “evil empire”.
Iran’s Supreme Leader is Dead, But the Islamic Republic is Not. Yet.
Read the article over at UnHerd.
HAMAS and the “Humanitarian” NGOs: Revelations from the Captured Documents
Early August 2016 was the point in the U.S. Presidential Election when Donald Trump, the presumed no-hoper candidate, was feuding with the Muslim Gold Star family, hinting broadly that if he lost it was because the vote was rigged, and being renounced by increasing numbers of elected Republicans.
Is Trump Willing to Pull the Trigger on Iran?
Read the article over at UnHerd.
The Russian “Whites” Were Not Monarchists
Painting of the Ice March by Sergey Eduardovich Chudanov (b. 1987) It Can Always Get Worse is a reader-supported publication. To receive notification of new posts, become a free subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to access all posts. During the Russian Civil War, which began with—and was an intrinsic to—Lenin’s coup in November 1917, Bolshevik propaganda affixed the label “Whites” or “White Guards” to the anti-Communist forces.
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