Israel: Rumors of war in a world transformed

On 9 April 2023, Israeli Arabist scholar and former intelligence officer Mordechai Kedar published an article recounting information recently received from an associate he describes as a source he has “known for years – an expatriate from the Middle East, a supporter of Israel, who lives in Europe and is in continuous contact with people in Iran and Iraq.”

The article is in the outlet Makor Rishon (“Firsthand Source”), owned by Israel Hayom.  The information outlined by Kedar is from his source’s “assessment that Iran is planning to launch a combined attack on Israel in the foreseeable future that will include all the forces at its disposal in the Arab countries” – Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

Kedar proceeds to describe missile and rocket barrages from all the implicated territories (including the more-distant nations), along with an unconventional ground attack from Lebanon and Gaza using motorcycles and ATVs, assisted by local Arab sabotage in Israel, Judea, and Samaria.

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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.

TOC Ready Room 16 December 2022: Censorship, gas lights, and Russia-Iran missile/drone adventure

A phenomenon has been developing in recent weeks that should raise our level of concern about the nature of public discourse, especially as brokered by the media.

It’s more than what the media, per se, are doing, however.  It has to do with “news” that purports to be coming from government, but is backed by no actual evidence, and is unverifiable in terms of whether it came from government at all, much less could be held accountable in any way.

We’ll have some examples below that clarify what I’m talking about.  To start with, however, a tweet exchange for orientation to the topic:

TOC Ready Room 24 August 2022: Notes on the Boxes of Mar-a-Lago; the end of an old order continues

The big news from the last 48 hours is that the Biden White House actually did know in advance of the Mar-a-Lago raid, and in fact had been involved in the issue of the documents held at Mar-a-Lago since at least April of 2022 (and probably earlier).  So the original claim that the Biden White House didn’t know about it was false.

That point has been gone over vigorously since it came out Monday night.  But the latest information on the Mar-a-Lago/classified information dust-up also confirms my previous discussion of the classification issue (and here).

In addition to that discussion, I offer as preparation an excellent 7-odd minutes with Megyn Kelly and former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright, which packages a pretty comprehensive overview of the things that matter.