Iran, TikTok: Two pings on the war that’s in progress

These pings will be brief.  Things are moving quickly at the moment.  That doesn’t mean they’ll continue moving quickly.  The vicissitude aisle is always having a blue-light special.  But the OODA loop is tightening, and if that isn’t a recognized sign that the conflict is underway, it will be when this is wrapped for the history books.

Ping One: Iran and the Biden administration

Readers will be aware that Saudi Arabia and Iran recently effected a rapprochement in relations, brokered by China.  The Biden administration not only wasn’t disturbed by that; it seemed to point out that it had basically through of it first, offering a favorable view of such a prospect last year.

Iran’s navy: Stealth-stalking the planet

On 9 March 2023, a webcam caught Iranian frigate IRIS Dena (F-75) underway departing Rio de Janeiro at the end of an extended port visit that began on 26 February 2023.

Forward support base IRINS Makran (441) was presumably in company with Dena.  Although Iran’s leaders have threatened to send the two-ship flotilla through the Panama Canal on this “round the world” deployment, it has been a vexed question from the beginning where the ships are at a given time, and it isn’t clear if they’re headed for the canal now.

There is naturally speculation that the warships will stop in Venezuela next.  If they do, they could already be off the coast from Caracas given their departure from Rio on Thursday.

Fascinating facts: Balloons, farmland, united fronts, shipping companies, military bases

So this happened:  in 2015, a Chinese balloon company, Kuangchi Science, launched a near-space balloon from a dairy farm in New Zealand.

But we’ll get to all that.  With plenty of links, because it’s a well-documented event.

First, we’ll take a detour on the path that led to this discovery.  I don’t think you’ll regret the time.

BREAKING:  This just in.  [Note: It was “just in” on Friday, when this “breaking news” entry was added. – J.E.]  On Friday morning (17 February), the Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed U.S. officials had specifically disclosed that defense intelligence was tracking Chinese balloons over American territory during Donald Trump’s term, but didn’t inform Trump at the time because they weren’t sure what the balloons were doing.  They reportedly thought the balloons might be used

TOC Ready Room 7 Jan 2023: Border disorder, Project Censorship, Church redux

Back from a Christmas “break,” and I’m still tired of politics.  What a silly method of dealing with human affairs.

A few random updates for the TOC squadron.

Readers probably won’t be surprised to learn that in December, the House Democrats adopted a rule that the J6 Committee materials they were going to send to the National Archives must be sequestered from release for 30 years.

Sourced from Yahoo report below.
Yahoo refs LAT rpt (scroll down) that house Dems rule of Dec 2022 wd prevent Archives release of most J6 docs for 30 yrs (extra-sensitive up to 50).
Democracy so important it requires hiding J6 matl for decades?https://t.co/N96MACCRC9 https://t.co/TvSXEXA311

— J.E. Dyer ☘️ (@OptimisticCon) January 6, 2023

It’s now being reported,

TOC Ready Room 22 November 2022: Drive-by edition; Poland missile impact, Biden FBI/Israel, Special Counsel and other Trump

Increasingly, I agree with those who say we need an “audit” of U.S. support to Ukraine.  I put “audit” in quotation marks because a mere audit of the tens of billions flowing to Ukraine – and to military contractors – won’t get the job done.  What’s needed is a wholesale policy scrub of the Biden administration’s handling of the problem.

As always, I begin by affirming that the U.S. needs to support a fight to reverse and end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The U.S. shouldn’t have direct military engagement in the fight, nor should NATO.

But it matters what strategy we’re supporting and how military assistance to Ukraine is executed.

It matters at least as much how the fight in Ukraine is affecting NATO’s security conditions, posture, and unity.