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Cake day: December 26th, 2023

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  • And what happens after you kill the Houthi leadership? Do all of the Houthi forces turn over their weapons and go home? Get taken over by a more radical leadership? Split up into a bunch of cells with no centralized leadership?

    The Houthis are not a force for good on the region. However, compared with other terrorist groups, they are relatively rational and constrained. If even half of their forces want to go more extreme, they will have a proximate reason to do so, and no leadership to stop them.

    The likely result is the Gaza war expands into having a full war on the Yemen front (which is, admittadly, on track to happen anyway), against an enemy that no longer has the capacity to negotiate or surrender.

    As a fun side note, a bunch of those cells are also going to be freshly angry at the US, which is very much not in her interest.

    We’ve tried killing terrorist leadership before. It tends to not end well.


  • The main complaint isn’t so much that Israel is killing enemy leaders; but that it is doing it in a strategically self destructive way.

    Bin Laden was a risky move, but the strike was conducted in Pakistan, who was friendly to us; and there are allegations that the Pakistani government gave more of a green light to the operation than they were willing to admit.

    Al Zawahiri was in Afghanistan about a year after we left. The Taliban at the time was still occupied in condolidating their power domestically; and their big victory was getting the US to withdraw. They lacked the will and means to start a major war with the US.

    Al Bagdhadi was done as part of the Syrian civil war, in direct coordination with the SDF. At the time the operation was planned, the US military was directly involved on the ground in Syria, although our sudden withdrawal prior complicated that.

    Israel is dealing with a country that is antagonistic to Isreal, and which has spent decades building up its military capabilities in anticipation of an eventual hot war with Israel. Iran has demonstrated that it has serious political will in avoiding a hot war, however it is just 1 miscalculation away from stumbling into one anyway; and every direct attack Israel makes causes Iran to roll the dice again. Or, at some point Iranian leadership might decide that all Israel’s direct attacks mean they are in a hot war already, an that Iran should respond with full force.

    In the case of this particular assassination, I struggle to see what tactical or strategic upside Israel gets to justify the risk. Israel is nominally trying to negotiate with Hamas; but they just killed a senior Hamas member who was involved in those negotiations. Worse, they killed a member who was, within the context of Hamas, a pro peace moderate. Him leaving for completely benign reasons would have been bad for Israel, because his replacement woukd likely be more antagonistic then him. This is 100x worse when he leaves due to a direct and deliberate attack by Israel.

    The only way Israel’s actions make sense is if the leadership that has been spending years trying to start a war with Iran is trying to start a war with Iran; and if the leadership that has been spending months sabatoging any potential deal in Gaza wants to sabatoge the potential for a deal in Gaza.






  • People have been warning from day 1 about the possibility of a regional escalation.

    Apparently you cannot spend months acting in a way that neighboors who already don’t like you find morally reprehensible without some of those neighbors inserting themselves into the conflict.

    The real question is how long can Iran avoid getting dragged into that. And if Iran gets involved directly, will we be able to contain this to a regional war, or will this small decades old conflict between parties whose total population is only about 12 million become the trigger for world war 3.



  • The DNC is planning of formally nominating the democratic ticket on August 5, which does not leave much time to pick a replacement (even if the replacement is vice president Harris).

    The August 5 date was picked back when everyone thought the nomination was a mere formality, in order to comply with an August 7 deadline from Ohio. Ohio, for its part, has pushed the deadline back to September, but I don’t think the DNC wants to risk a ballot challenge making it’s way to the Supreme Court.


  • Israel: Our demands to end the war are simple. The complete destruction of Hamas and a non-Hamas government in Gaza.

    US: Ok. We found a Palestinian organization with decades of governing experience, and a history of working well with you. Also, they have been opposed to Hamas since Hamas took over Gaza.

    Israel: Ok, as long as we don’t need to admit to working with them.

    US: Fair enough. PA, Israel and I have been destabilizing and radicalizing Gaza for decades. No country in the world is willing to touch it with a 10 foot pole now. Would you mind fixing that for us?

    PA: So, you’ll recognize us as a partial governing party is Gaza.

    Israel: No. Our voters won’t stand for us working with Palestinians. We just want you to do all of the work, and take the blame for every that goes wrong.

    US: You should really consider it. It’s a good deal.

    Israel: Also, since your here, these are some new settlements our people are building in your land on the West Bank. Could you keep your people peaceful during this? K, thanks.

    PA: Yeah … No.


    I wonder why Israel can’t find a credible partner for peace.