Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Discussing the Islamic State's advance towards Baghdad
My latest @ Sun News Network: Discussing the Islamic State's advance towards Baghdad
Monday, September 29, 2014
President Obama and Iran
My latest @ The National Review: Why is President Obama still buying what Rouhani is selling?
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Iran, Mao and the Oceanic Whitetip
“The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims
in the sea”
Mao Zedong
Mao’s sea analogy has rarely been
more useful. Facing the Islamic State’s deliberate chaos, public interest in
counter-terrorism is soaring. But Mao’s insurgency quote reminds us that
terrorists operate in a political ecosystem. It offers further analogies for
terrorist strategy.
The Islamic State, for example, is
the bull shark of the sea. Hyper-aggressive and opportunistic, it attacks just
about anything that has t,e misfortune of encountering it. The Bull Shark has few limits: hunting prey, it will travel
up river systems as well as oceans. In the same way, IS has an insatiable lust
for the conquest of new territory and the domination of new lives. In contrast,
Iran’s hardliners are the Oceanic Whitetips of the political ecosystem. Lurking far
offshore, Whitetips rarely attack beachgoers. Instead, they are patient and
calculating, following ships and waiting for their discarded waste. Or their
shipwreck. Then the Whitetip strikes. Iran's terrorism strategy is the same. The Whitetip
strategy is the philosophy of opportunity from perceived vulnerability.
Ultimately, the only
way to deal with oceanic Whitetips is to mitigate one’s vulnerability against
them. Just as attracting Whitetips with waste risks disaster, concessions unbound from reciprocal concessions are ludicrous.
Latest TV
My latest @ Sun News Network: structural differences between Khorasan and the Islamic State, variable threats and ideology
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