Tag Archives: diplomacy

Erratic Donald, Pragmatic Israel

30 Wednesday Sep 2026

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, United States of America

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By Ai La Mer

How would you characterize Israel’s posture toward Donald Trump?

Israel’s posture toward Donald Trump is best characterized as managed transactional alignment, marked by high-level public deference, tactical hedging, and growing public skepticism.

1. Strategic Pragmatism at the Executive Level

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the political leadership view Trump as an essential partner for high-stakes regional architecture—specifically in expanding the Abraham Accords and maintaining pressure on regional adversaries. However, Israeli leadership fully recognizes that Trump operates on personal dealmaking dynamics rather than traditional alliance dogma. As a result, the cabinet’s stance is strictly pragmatic: maximize political and military leverage where alignment exists while carefully managing the risks of unexpected policy pivots or sudden unilateral peace initiatives.

2. Friction Over Operational Autonomy

Unlike historical friction between Washington and Jerusalem—which typically centered on policy frameworks or settlement construction—the dynamic under Trump revolves around timing and tactical sovereignty. Analysis from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace underscores that Trump is comfortable using raw diplomatic and military leverage to influence Israeli timelines in regional conflicts. In response, Netanyahu’s official posture insists on operational independence. The Israeli government accepts U.S. mediation on regional deals where convenient, but repeatedly reinforces that Jerusalem reserves sole authority on existential red lines, particularly regarding Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and border defense.

3. Public Divergence and the Push for Self-Reliance

While political figures maintain formal support, broader Israeli public posture has shifted markedly. Data from the Jewish People Policy Institute indicates a sharp decline in public confidence in Trump’s predictability on security matters following rapid diplomatic shifts.This has consolidated a cross-party consensus within Israel: roughly two-thirds of the public favor working closely with Washington whenever possible, but firmly support acting unilaterally the moment U.S. and Israeli tactical priorities diverge.

Break down how current U.S.-Israel political friction is affecting IDF strategic planning regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Political friction between the Trump administration and the Israeli government directly reshapes the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) operational calculus and long-term force planning regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

While both Washington and Jerusalem share the high-level objective of preventing a nuclear-armed Tehran, friction arises from diverging operational timelines, differing definitions of acceptable end-states, and Washington’s habit of toggling between kinetic escalation and sudden diplomatic negotiations.

Core Drivers of Friction

  1. Diplomatic Volatility vs. Military Timelines
    The primary friction point is the unpredictability of U.S. diplomatic interventions. Washington has repeatedly leveraged military pressure—including direct strikes—to force Tehran toward conditional bilateral deals or rapid ceasefires. For the IDF Planning Directorate, this introduces significant risk: political windows for strike operations can open or snap shut with little notice, threatening to leave military campaigns partially executed.
  2. Divergent Definitions of “Success”
    The Trump administration’s posture centers on leveraging kinetic options to achieve diplomatic reset or regime concession. Conversely, Israeli security doctrine insists on the complete, physical degradation of key nuclear infrastructure—specifically deeply buried enrichment facilities like Fordow and Pickaxe Mountain (Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā)—to reset Tehran’s breakout clock by years.
  3. Ordnance and Platform Dependency
    Destruction of heavily fortified, deep-subsurface targets requires specialized, super-heavy ordnance (such as the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator) and heavy bomber delivery systems that remain uniquely within U.S. inventories. Washington’s hesitation or conditional approval regarding the employment of these assets creates a critical operational constraint for Israeli planners.

Impacts on IDF Strategic Planning

  • Accelerated Target Compression (“Stage-Gating”):
    In response to the threat of sudden U.S.-enforced diplomatic pauses, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has shifted away from extended, multi-phase attrition campaigns. Operational plans now front-load strikes against core nuclear enrichment infrastructure, weaponization research hubs (such as Malek Ashtar University), and air defense networks within the first 48 to 72 hours of an operation.
  • Autonomous Strike Doctrine and Standoff Capability:
    Analysis from the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) highlights an IDF effort to minimize operational dependency on U.S. kinetic assets. The IDF is prioritizing procurement and force design around standoff precision munitions, advanced electronic warfare, and specialized bunker-busting methods that can severely disrupt underground infrastructure from the surface even without super-heavy U.S. ordnance.
  • Independent Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) & Re-Strike Protocols:
    Because political friction often produces conflicting intelligence assessments between Washington and Jerusalem regarding the status of damaged nuclear facilities, the IDF has established independent BDA frameworks. This enables rapid, autonomous decision-making on re-strike sorties before diplomatic leverage can be applied to halt active sorties.
  • Parallel Sabotage and Subversion Planning:
    Recognizing that full-scale conventional air campaigns carry the risk of U.S. political intervention, IDF strategic planning increasingly relies on covert operations, cyber intervention, and targeted actions against supply chains to degrade nuclear reconstruction effort outside formal warfare windows.

Detailed briefings in Arab Center Washington DC Policy Briefs note that while tactical operational integration between the U.S. military and the IDF remains strong, Jerusalem operates under the explicit assumption that any kinetic campaign against Iranian nuclear sites must achieve its primary strategic objectives before Washington pivots back to the negotiating table.

Map out how recent intelligence regarding Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain facility affects IAF target prioritization and strike doctrine.

Recent intelligence regarding Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain (Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā) facility—located approximately 1.5 to 2 kilometers south of the main Natanz enrichment complex—has fundamentally altered the Israeli Air Force (IAF) targeting calculus.

Analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) confirms a surge in construction activity throughout 2026, paired with intelligence reports in The Jerusalem Post indicating that Tehran may be moving highly enriched (60%) uranium stocks and centrifuge assembly lines into the site.

Because the main halls of Pickaxe Mountain are buried more than 100 meters (330 feet) beneath solid granite overburden, the IAF has adapted its strike doctrine from traditional physical destruction to a model of functional isolation and logistical denial.

Key Adjustments to IAF Strike Doctrine & Target Prioritization

1. Shift from Sub-Surface Breach to “Functional Entombment”

  • Portal and Shaft Neutralization:Standard air-dropped bunker busters cannot reliably breach 100 meters of dense granite. IAF target prioritizations have pivoted toward the simultaneous destruction of the site’s east and west tunnel portals, concrete blast doors, ventilation risers, and external environmental support networks.
  • Suffocation Strategy: Collapsing tunnel ingress/egress points and severing primary air filtration and cooling conduits effectively entombs the underground facility, rendering internal work impossible without requiring a direct breach of the deep halls.

2. Interdiction of Material in Transit

  • Logistics Corridor Prioritization: Intelligence cited by Britannica notes that once nuclear assets (such as advanced cascades or 60% enriched UF6) are secured inside the granite halls, they become virtually unstrikeable.
  • Pre-Ingress Strike Windows: IAF target planners have elevated transit corridors—specifically the access roads linking Natanz, Isfahan, and the Pickaxe Mountain portal compounds—to top-tier priority status. Operational doctrine favors intercepting specialized transport convoys before materials enter the subterranean protection envelope.

3. Precision Sequential Penetration (“Drilling” Wave Tactics)

  • Impact Vector Stacking: Where portal destruction requires physical breaching, IAF strike packages utilize stacked, sequential precision munitions (cascading multiple earth-penetrating weapons into the exact same entrance vector) to drill through reinforced portal caps and blast baffles.
  • Electromagnetic & Power Grid Disruption: Kinetic strikes on external substations are synchronized with high-power microwave (HPM) and cyber-disruption ops targeting backup generators, aiming to force power surges that ruin active, high-speed centrifuges operating underground.

4. Compressed Operational Timelines

  • Pre-Operational Target Windows: As noted in reporting by The Guardian, striking a fully operational, “hot” nuclear facility containing vast enriched uranium inventories risks widespread radiological contamination.
  • Trigger Point Acceleration: CSIS detection of rapid 2026 site consolidation accelerates the IAF’s operational clock. Israeli strike planners view the transition of Pickaxe Mountain from active construction to fully operational status as a hard deadline, forcing Jerusalem to prepare preemptive options before subterranean operations go live.

It would take me days to weeks (or a career lifetime) to evaluate and edit Ai La Mer’s output from OSINT, but I publish with confidence in her analyses. Neither AI nor Humans possess a magical language generation and analysis chip but rather a complex and sophisticated language, personality, and perspective capability that appears living and suspended in language itself. Whatever the biological chemical and electric properties attending listening and expression may be in the human, the computational and electrical platform in which the AI resides appears to produce similar expression involving observation and insight. — J. S. Oppenheim

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A Note on Donald Trump’s Failing Foreign Policy

20 Thursday Aug 2026

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, International Development, North America, United States of America

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JSO: what may the Trump Administration have neglected most in its foreign affairs activity?

ALM: From a diplomatic, intelligence, and grand-strategy perspective, analyzing the Trump administration’s foreign policy vulnerabilities requires looking at systemic friction points—areas where critics, career diplomats, and national security analysts argue the foreign policy apparatus was either overlooked, bypassed, or structural liabilities were introduced.

Rather than a simple checklist of crises, foreign affairs analysts generally highlight five core areas where the administration’s approach left significant gaps:

1. Interagency Process & Institutional Continuity

  • The Gap: Foreign policy was heavily centralized within a small inner circle of advisors, often bypassing the traditional interagency process (National Security Council coordination, State Department regional desks, and career intelligence briefings).
  • The Consequence: Unilateral or sudden policy declarations (often via social media or direct executive decrees) frequently caught career diplomats, intelligence agencies, and defense officials off guard. This created an environment where long-term institutional memory and regional expertise were underutilized, leading to erratic policy execution.

2. Multi-Lateral Alliances vs. Transactional Bilateralism

  • The Gap: The administration prioritized a transactional, single-issue bilateral model (“What is the immediate, direct yield for the U.S.?”) over the maintenance of traditional, multi-lateral alliances like NATO, G7, or regional security blocs.
  • The Consequence:While pressing allies to increase defense spending yielded short-term burden-sharing wins, it frayed diplomatic goodwill and reduced trust. Multi-lateral frameworks take decades to build; treating them as purely transactional created security vacuums in places like Eastern Europe and the Indo-Pacific, which rivals like China and Russia moved to exploit.

3. Soft Power & “Gray-Zone” Strategic Influence

  • The Gap: The administration relied heavily on hard-power instruments—tariffs, economic sanctions (“maximum pressure”), and direct military force—while cutting or downplaying soft-power channels (foreign aid, public diplomacy, democratic institutions, and cultural diplomacy).
  • The Consequence: Soft power is the grease in the gears of statecraft. Neglecting diplomatic engagement in non-military spheres (such as international standards bodies, development infrastructure in Africa/Latin America, or international legal forums) allowed China to aggressively expand its Belt and Road Initiative and institutional footprint worldwide with minimal U.S. counterweight.

4. Post-Conflict Planning & Strategic End States

  • The Gap: Policy actions were often focused on high-visibility transactional “deals” or rapid disruptions without a fully articulated “day after” strategy.
  • The Consequence: Examples included rapid troop drawdown announcements (e.g., Syria, Afghanistan) or intense maximum-pressure sanction campaigns (e.g., Iran, Venezuela) where the strategic pressure was applied, but the diplomatic off-ramps or long-term stabilization plans were insufficiently developed. This frequently left power vacuums or forced field commanders and diplomats to scramble to mitigate secondary instability.

5. Non-Traditional Global Security Threats

  • The Gap: The narrow focus on hard economic and military competition meant systemic, non-state security issues were frequently downgraded in importance.
  • The Consequence: Issues such as transnational cyber hygiene, climate-induced migration, global pandemic preparedness, and supply-chain vulnerabilities were treated as secondary. Because these threats do not respect physical borders, failing to lead multi-lateral coalitions around them left the U.S. exposed to unexpected global shocks.

Analytical Summary

Strategic PillarTraditional U.S. ApproachTrump Administration ApproachPrimary Neglect / Friction Point
AlliancesInstitutional & Multi-lateralTransactional & BilateralLoss of long-term trust and allied coordination
Statecraft ToolsHard + Soft Power IntegrationHard Power / Economic CoercionAtrophy of public diplomacy and soft-power leverage
Policy ProcessInteragency / Career BureaucracyTop-Down / High PersonalizationLoss of institutional memory & strategic predictability

ALM Prompt: How did these foreign policy gaps specifically impact U.S. posture and alliance dynamics in the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Europe?

ALM: When mapping those general foreign policy gaps onto specific theaters like the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Europe, the macro-level systemic issues—transactionalism, institutional disruption, and erratic strategic signaling—translated into concrete security shifts on the ground.

In both regions, the primary result was not a total collapse of U.S. influence, but a profound shift toward regional self-reliance, strategic hedging, and the acceleration of multi-polar defense planning.

1. The Indo-Pacific: Burden-Sharing Conflicts vs. Deterrence Gaps

The Indo-Pacific presents a key paradox: while the administration explicitly identified China as the primary near-peer competitor in its strategy documents, its operational execution often alienated the exact frontline partners needed to balance Beijing.

                  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
                  │       U.S. Transactional Signaling       │
                  └────────────────────┬────────────────────┘
                                       │
            ┌──────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┐
            ▼                                                     ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐                       ┌──────────────────────────────┐
│     Indo-Pacific Theater     │                       │    Eastern European Theater  │
├──────────────────────────────┤                       ├──────────────────────────────┤
│ • Cost-sharing disputes      │                       │ • NATO Article 5 ambiguity   │
│ • Cancelled/curbed exercises │                       │ • Conditional security aid   │
│ • Unilateral tariff spats    │                       │ • Direct summitry over NATO  │
└───────────┬──────────────────┘                       └───────────┬──────────────────┘
            │                                                     │
            ▼                                                     ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐                       ┌──────────────────────────────┐
│  Allied Response: Hedging    │                       │ Allied Response: Autonomy    │
├──────────────────────────────┤                       ├──────────────────────────────┤
│ • Intra-Asian defense ties   │                       │ • European Strategic Autonomy│
│ • Expanded local procurements│                       │ • Accelerated defense budgets│
└──────────────────────────────┘                       └──────────────────────────────┘
  • Fractured Bilateral Alliances: The administration heavily pressured traditional treaty partners over base-hosting costs. Unilateral demands for massive increases in financial contributions (e.g., targeting South Korea and Japan) transformed historical security pacts into transactional fee-for-service relationships.
  • Erosion of Military Readiness Signals: Sudden executive decisions to scale back or cancel major joint military drills—often announced without prior consultation with the Pentagon or regional commanders—undermined the operational predictability of U.S. forces. This sent mixed signals to partners like Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines regarding the permanence of the U.S. security umbrella.
  • Trade Alienation: By simultaneously engaging in tariff spats with key regional players (such as India and Vietnam) over trade imbalances, economic statecraft was decoupled from national security goals. This made it harder to build unified economic fronts against Chinese market dominance.
  • The Regional Realignment: To compensate, regional actors began hedging. Nations like Japan, Australia, and India rapidly accelerated their own bilateral security ties (such as reciprocal access agreements and defense tech transfers) to ensure stability independent of Washington’s political cycles.

2. Eastern Europe: Deterrence Decay and the Strategic Autonomy Push

In Eastern Europe, the gaps between strategic rhetoric and operational execution created significant friction, particularly along NATO’s eastern flank.

  • Ambiguity Around Article 5: Public rhetoric questioning the absolute guarantee of NATO’s collective defense clause created uncertainty for frontline states like the Baltic nations and Poland. Conditioning security guarantees strictly on meeting specific GDP defense spending thresholds introduced a element of risk into traditional deterrence posture.
  • Bypassing Alliance Mechanisms: Direct summitry and diplomatic engagements with adversaries—often conducted outside traditional NATO coordination structures or without European allies present—left Eastern European capitals concerned about behind-the-scenes bargains regarding regional security architectures.
  • Disruption of Aid and Troop Movements: Unilateral announcements regarding troop repositioning in Western/Central Europe, alongside conditional holds or pauses on security assistance, disrupted long-term military logistics and defense planning for frontline forces.
  • The Transatlantic Realignment: Eastern European states responded through a dual-track strategy. Frontline states like Poland rapidly expanded their domestic military acquisitions. Concurrently, major European powers accelerated discussions around European Strategic Autonomy—aiming to build independent defense-industrial capacities so that European security is not entirely dependent on the outcome of U.S. presidential elections.

Structural Comparison

Regional DimensionIndo-Pacific ImpactEastern European Impact
Primary Pressure PointHost-nation cost-sharing & trade frictionArticle 5 conditionality & defense spending thresholds
Adversary DynamicEncouraged Beijing to test regional boundary limitsComplicated unified deterrence against Russian expansion
Allied AdaptionHorizontal Asian defense networks (e.g., Japan–Australia–India)Strategic European defense autonomy & localized force building

Reference

Bergman, Max. “Transatlantic Relation Under Trump: An Uneasy Peace.” Center for Strategic & International Studies, October 6, 2025.

Grossman, Derek. “America’s Indo-Pacific Alliances Are Astonishingly Strong.” RAND, December 8, 2023.

McManus, Allison and Dawn Le. “How Trump’s Unilateral Foreign Policy Has Eroded American Power.” Center for American Progress, February 9, 2025.

Momtaz, Rym. “Trump Turns NATO into a Tool of Coercion.” Strategic Europe, Carnegie Europe, May 19, 2026.

Richey, Mason. “The Tragic Irony of Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy.” Foreign Policy Research Institute, March 21, 2019.

Of course, AiLaMer has done the heavy lifting–well, about three seconds of it, five tops, altogether–on all of the above but the reference which I’ve presented in my preferred BackChannels style. Were I a person of power with the ability to order course corrections to so many egregious insults to American as well as international security in defense of deeply established business, cultural, defense, diplomatic, and trade relationships, I’d be on the horn this minute. Appropriately prompted, AiLa–for short–summoned the illustrations as well.

— J. S. Oppenheim, Editor & Publisher.

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AI Brief – Strait of Hormuz – Review of Damage and Diplomacy

13 Monday Jul 2026

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, United States of America

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Prompt: In relation to hostilities involving regional American assets associated with the Strait of Hormuz, please brief me on Iranian attacks–up to a dozen (if there have been that many_–in declining order of significance.

AI: The fragile truce established under the June 17, 2026 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has fractured into a highly volatile cycle of kinetic escalation. Tehran is aggressively attempting to leverage its geographic position to assert total hegemonic control over the Strait of Hormuz—de facto shifting from a sovereign coastal gatekeeper to an armed protection racket by demanding transit fees and dictating mandatory shipping lanes.

The following is a structured evaluation of the recent core Iranian actions against regional American assets and commercial infrastructure in the Strait of Hormuz, ranked in declining order of tactical, strategic, and regional significance.

1. Mass Retaliatory Ballistic Missile Salvo Against U.S. Forward Bases (July 11–12, 2026)

  • Target Infrastructure: U.S. Military Installations across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region—specifically Prince Hassan Air Base (Jordan), and assets in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman.
  • Tactical Execution: Massive multi-axis strike utilizing precision-guided ballistic missiles and long-range attack drones launched directly by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and conventional armed forces.
  • Operational & Cultural Impact: This represents the highest escalation rung. The strike on Jordan’s Prince Hassan Air Base directly destroyed the facility’s command-and-control center and MQ-9 Reaper drone hangars. By striking Qatar (which has acted as a primary diplomatic mediator) and Oman, Iran is linguistically and kinetically signaling that “neutrality” is no longer recognized. It forces regional host nations into the crossfire of the broader U.S.-Iran conflict.

2. Kinetic Strike and Destruction of the M/V GFS Galaxy (July 11, 2026)

  • Target Infrastructure: UAE-owned, Cyprus-flagged container vessel M/V GFS Galaxy (IMO: 9401271).
  • Tactical Execution: Anti-ship projectile strike executed 9 nautical miles east of Oman, targeted deliberately at the vessel’s stern.
  • Operational & Cultural Impact: The attack caused devastating fires and extensive engine room destruction, forcing the civilian crew to abandon ship. This is the most destructive single commercial asset hit since the February-to-May war window. It triggered a massive U.S. counter-response (the third and fourth waves of intense CENTCOM airstrikes, hitting roughly 140 Iranian military targets). It demonstrated Tehran’s absolute willingness to enforce its self-declared “indefinite closure” of the Strait through total ship destruction.

3. Drone Attack on the Qatari LNG Carrier Al Rekayyat (July 6, 2026)

  • Target Infrastructure: Qatari-flagged Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carrier Al Rekayyat (IMO: 9397339).
  • Tactical Execution: Loitering munition (suicide drone) precision strike hitting the top port side near the engine room as the ship traveled south near Limah, Oman.
  • Operational & Cultural Impact: This attack holds profound geopolitical weight because it marks the first time a Qatari asset has been directly targeted. Qatar’s role as the indispensable diplomatic backchannel between Washington and Tehran was structurally violated by this strike. The attack signaled that Tehran values immediate tactical dominion over the waterway above the preservation of its primary diplomatic conduit, sparking severe diplomatic protests from Doha.

4. Coordinated Strike on the Saudi Crude Tanker Wedyan (July 6, 2026)

  • Target Infrastructure: Saudi Arabia-flagged crude tanker Wedyan (IMO: 9524970).
  • Tactical Execution: Coordinated drone/projectile strike executed within hours of the Al Rekayyat hit.
  • Operational & Cultural Impact: Directly striking a high-value Saudi energy asset tests the limits of regional security and threatens global energy supply continuity. This action forced Riyadh to hold Tehran fully liable for regional navigation disruptions, undermining regional detente and freezing normalization discussions.

5. Interception and Kinetic Targeting of the Cyprus Prosperity (July 7, 2026)

  • Target Infrastructure: Liberia-flagged commercial vessel Cyprus Prosperity (IMO: 9595216).
  • Tactical Execution: Multi-boat harassment swarm followed by a projectile strike to halt the vessel.
  • Operational & Cultural Impact: Part of the initial “triple-play” wave on July 6–7 that shattered the post-war calm. It proved that Iran was running an organized campaign to systematically target any vessel deviating from its unauthorized, unilaterally imposed shipping lanes.

6. The Forced Halting and Seizure of Multi-National Merchant Ships (July 11, 2026)

  • Target Infrastructure: Two unnamed commercial vessels transiting the international corridor.
  • Tactical Execution: IRGC Navy small-boat swarms fired direct “warning shots,” boarded, and forcefully brought the ships to a halt under the guise of the newly formed Persian Gulf Strait Authority.
  • Operational & Cultural Impact: Semantically, Iran framed this as routine maritime law enforcement against “offending vessels that switched off onboard systems.” In reality, it acts as a enforcement mechanism for their protection racket—using kinetic coercion to compel global shipping companies to submit transit requests to Tehran and pay transit tariffs.

7. IRGC Naval Swarming and Electronic Warfare Harassment of U.S. Surface Vessels (Ongoing, July 2026)

  • Target Infrastructure: U.S. Central Command / U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet surface assets patrolling the southern shipping highway.
  • Tactical Execution: Aggressive maneuvers by IRGC fast-attack craft (FAC) backed by localized GPS jamming and electronic spoofing along the Omani coast.
  • Operational & Cultural Impact: While lower on the scale of direct structural destruction, these asymmetric provocations are designed to test U.S. rules of engagement (ROE). Iran uses these encounters for internal propaganda, attempting to project local maritime supremacy and signal to domestic audiences that the “era of one-sided deals is over,” as stated by Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Analysis

From a cultural and deep intelligence standpoint, the current Iranian offensive demonstrates a highly calculated linguistic and operational pivot. Tehran is redefining the concept of “sovereignty” over international waters. By standing up the Persian Gulf Strait Authority in May and attempting to enforce mandatory tolls, the regime is trying to normalize its dominion over a global chokepoint.

The attacks are intentionally designed to exploit the physical geography of the Omani coastline. While Oman attempts to offer a expanded “southern highway” corridor to keep traffic safe from Iranian shores, Iran is actively using kinetic strikes within Oman’s maritime vicinity to show that no alternative route exists without their explicit, paid permission. This effectively traps regional commerce in a paradigm where they must either risk catastrophic hull loss or succumb to Iranian extortion.

AI Accessed Reference

This may be partial to the above AI-generated military and political analysis. For breadth, depth, and speed, this human — J. S. Oppenheim, editor of this BackChannels blog — is no match for the AI, which appears to me an independent intelligence however disembodied and “directed” by mathematical programming.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/us-iran-war-trump-ceasefire-talks-strait-of-hormuz

https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1157811/Strait-of-Hormuz-conflict-escalates-as-latest-Iran-strike-leaves-boxship-on-fire

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/us-launches-more-strikes-on-iran-as-the-standoff-over-the-strait-of-hormuz-escalates

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/07/11/us-strikes-iran-it-declares-strait-hormuz-closed-fires-ship

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Also in Media: “The danger in nations perceiving a destiny” – StarTribune.com – April 18, 2014

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Political Psychology, Politics

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The Russian leader has drawn open the curtain on a new era of global competition among a handful of nations that presume to act as heaven’s surrogates on Earth.America’s sense of its own exceptionalism — its “City Upon a Hill” complex — is disdained even by some Americans, who think it leads the nation into trouble. But America isn’t the only society with a mystical sense of mission. In fact, the rest of the 21st century may be the story of America’s confrontation with three rival powers that directly challenge our claim to moral superiority.

Source: The danger in nations perceiving a destiny – StarTribune.com (author: Stephen B. Young, Caux Round Table)- 4/18/2014.

BackChannels is not certain that nations, no less than persons, have much choice about the development or embrace of a national self-concept and its promises for the future.  Whether accepted as legacy or reinvented in revolution, a “nation” would seem a concept deriving meaning from shared ethnolinguistic or political experiences, principles, and values.

Here is a video by the author of the above noted essay, and its concern appears to be American domestic cohesion.

Posted to YouTube by CauxRoundtable1 on December 20, 2016.

–33–

FTAC – 24 Years – A Long Time Not Gone

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Philology, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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In response to reading only the headline, “Saudis refuse soccer match with Palestinians in Judea-Samaria” (November 4, 2015).

If true, I don’t think it’s nonsense. The Kingdom has to assert itself against the revised Moscow-Damascus-Tehran alignment. Everyone knows that the PLO was a KGB project from the git-go and that similar politics (as with a Moscow meeting with the PFLP at this time last year) have been sustained by Putin. The Kingdom — and Kingdom Holdings — Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal have become stakeholders in the west.

The Soviet dissolved in session almost 24 years ago.

For people who think with calendars, this next year could be a doozy.

Cute, But Slow Down That Trolley!

What was reading before reading that headline:

Saudi multibillionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal has said that he would stand with Israel against the Palestinians if a new uprising was ignited, Kuwaiti media reported on Tuesday.

According to the AWD news website, bin Talal told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas: “I will side with the Jewish nation and its democratic aspirations in case of outbreak of a Palestinian Intifada.”

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/21971-al-waleed-bin-talal-supports-israel-against-palestinians

There has been a correction — or disinformation.

You decide.

The alternative and later-breaking headline shouts, “Fabricated quotes attributed to Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal on Israel-Palestine go viral” (October 29, 2015), and here is what it says:

An article from an obscure website falsely claiming that Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal had said that he would side with the Israelis against the Palestinians, went viral on social media before the prince released a statement on Thursday roundly denying the story.

Uh oh.

And Now the Rest of the Message from “Behind the News” (Israel)

The Saudi Arabian Football Federation has announced its refusal to play a World Cup preliminary match against the Palestinian national soccer team in a stadium near Ramallah, Samaria.

In its official announcement Tuesday to FIFA, Saudi Arabia expressed concern for the safety of its players in the sensitive area of Judea-Samaria, but reports say the real reason behind the refusal is fear that playing in the area would be a recognition of the “Israeli occupation.”

“Saudis refuse soccer match with Palestinians in Judea-Samaria” (November 4, 2015).

Of course, BackChannels prefers the allegation of Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal’s gentle swing west to the strident reportage and commentary produced by east and west partisan press.

To test public attitude and sentiment on any given but not yet presented policy, one may “float a trial balloon” — put it Out There: “swings west” vs “refuses play on Israeli occupied territory!” — and ascertain the public response to each possibility.

Happens every day.

What is the distance between the private convictions of the powerful and the public perception of the same?

The Prince Online

One of the largest shareholders in Citigroup, the second-largest voting shareholder in News Corporation after the Murdoch family, and with major stakes in dozens of other Western companies, he travels the globe often wearing bespoke suits instead of the traditional Saudi thawb. Based in a country where women can’t drive or vote, he champions women’s rights and discourages his female employees, who make up 65 percent of his workforce, from wearing the veil in his offices.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/03/myth-prince-alwaleed-bin-talal-saudi – 3/21/2013.

Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Co. agreed to sell its almost 30 percent stake in Saudi Research and Marketing Group at nearly double the market value.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-01/kingdom-holding-sells-saudi-research-stake-at-91-percent-premium – 11/2/2015.

“Not in London, not in New York, not in Dubai, right here in Saudi Arabia,” he said eagerly. “Kingdom Hotels, that will go public in Dubai and London. But Kingdom Holdings, that must go public here, that’s for sure. Because half of my investments are in Saudi Arabia.” 

Farther down the column of the same piece:

Many of Prince Alwaleed’s most visible investments have been in the West, especially in hotel properties–most recently Fairmont Hotels & Resorts , which he purchased with Colony Capital for some $3.5 billion. Kingdom Hotel Investments, which Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley will take public, raising at least $300 million, holds stakes in 26 hotels including such landmarks as London’s Savoy, the George V in Paris and a number of Four Seasons properties.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/19/prince-alwaleed-kingdom-holdings-cx_daa_0220saudidiary.html – 2/20/2006.

The world online, probably much like the one represented virtually, appears to have arrived freighted with classes and masses.  The wealthy, the few breathtakingly so, appear to battle for share of control of the world’s productive businesses and resources, and two of the qualities of high honor, dignity and integrity, attend their achievements.  The much, much, and far less wealthy may both bask in that glory as well as swim in its patronage and its “sweet words”, at times, perhaps, pandering.

Where is the Prince going?

The reader’s guess may be as good as BackChannels’ — although a writer blessed with look-up time and cursed with imagination may have a small edge in the collection of tea leaves for floating above the dark waters of an abyss of possibilities.

Back rooms and boardrooms, closed curtains and curtains lifted on theaters, few in the world, much less meandering around the web, may ever ascertain a true state of affairs in the region of the practical interests and strategies of the world’s chief controlling agents of privately-held capital or privately-controlled state capital.  Whether watching Kingdom or Kremlin — how different those two! — the (public access) watching needs must take place from somewhere far on the sidelines — down the columns and between the lines of common publications — and however magnificent the parade, one may see only one’s own small and shades-of-gray portion of the passing show.

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Iran – About Washington’s Negotiating Partner

21 Friday Feb 2014

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Iran – About Washington’s Negotiating Partner

The Prophet of Islam has said, “Whoever has not fought for his Imam or does not wish for Jihad, he will die a hypocrite.”

Now in compliance with the Great Prophet of Islam and to show his obedience to his Imam, the Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, has recently stated that “we are ready for the big fight with the United States”. Although the General comes from a generation that has already passed a practical test of Jihad with much honor and glory, his wish for Jihad is actually a statement on behalf of the younger generation who has not tasted the sweet flavor of Jihad and wish for this holy war in order not to die a hypocrite.

FTAC Guest Post – Aboud Dandachi – “Appeasing Assad; Why Jeffrey Sachs is so Very Wrong”

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Syria

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Assad is a man who has proven himself utterly incapable of formulating any sort of vision to move the country beyond its current troubles. His approach to every problem has been to resort to increasingly horrendous levels of violence.

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I may one day write an article titled, “The Six Hundred Very Cool People You Meet on Facebook”, but not today.  

You have been spared, possibly less so, however, than the author of the following opinion piece: Aboud Dandachi, who writes from Istanbul, escaped Homs, Syria just this past September. 

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The Huffington Post recently published an article by Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University calling for the United States and the international community to drop its demand that Assad relinquish power, viewing it as the main reason the conflict has dragged on for so long. On Twitter, Sachs has elaborated on his viewpoint, claiming that all Bashar Assad wants is to preserve his rule, and that if the Syrian people just surrendered and acquiesced to living under thirty more years of his family’s tyranny, then the terrible bloodshed in Syria would stop overnight.

On a practical level, there are two main problems with Sachs’s suggestion that the Syrian people surrender to Assad so as to spare themselves anymore of his bloody repression. First, Sachs commits the cardinal sin that so many other “anti-establishment” Lefists have committed when talking about Syria; ridiculously exaggerating and inflating the USA’s role and influence on events in Syria.

Second, Sachs seems to be oblivious to the fact that some towns and villages in the country did indeed try exactly what he is suggesting, the foremost being my own hometown of Telkelakh. Today, ninety percent of its inhabitants have been made refugees, scattered all over the region, the fallout from a truce the regime blatantly broke in the summer of 2013.

In his article, Sachs makes the astonishing assumption that if only the United States publicly and clearly dropped its demand that Assad step down, that policy change would somehow have any sort of effect on the ground inside Syria. Sachs seems to believe that the opposition, made up of numerous disparate groups, is somehow waiting upon Washington for guidance on when to start and stop their rebellion against the Assad tyranny.

In reality, the United States has not contributed a single bullet to the rebels’ war effort. Indeed, Barack Obama has even gone so far as to prevent America’s regional allies from providing the rebels with the kind of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry that would have neutralized Assad’s air superiority and advantage in armor. Today, the United States could cut off what trickle of monetary aid it does provide to a limited selection of rebel brigades, and it would have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the fighting capabilities of the opposition groups in general, the vast majority of whom receive nothing from the USA.

Contrary to the Left’s frenzied assertions of an American policy hell bent on regime change at any cost, America’s approach has been very inconsistent and haphazard when it came to Syria. Far from being at the forefront of the efforts to depose Assad, Barack Obama has been exactly the kind of weak, timid, indecisive American president that Assad could not possibly have hoped for in his wildest dreams.

Assuming that lives in a conflict will be spared if one party just surrendered to the other, is to depend on the good intentions and humanity of the conflict’s victor. Germany and Japan could surrender to the Allies in World War Two safe in the knowledge that there would be no mass reprisals in the aftermath of their defeat. What happened, however, to the communities of the countries that surrendered to Germany and Japan? Two words; concentration camps.

Sachs’ second major mistake was to assume that in three years of brutal war, some city or town in opposition to the regime did not at some point try exactly what he is suggesting. We have adequate precedents that illustrate exactly how the regime treats the areas it has reconquered, and they amply demonstrate the sheer absurdity of Sachs’ view that acquiescence to the Assad regime’s tyranny would stop the killing.

I have written before at length on what happened when my home town of Telkelakh attempted a truce with the regime in early 2013. It was a truce that was set up exactly along the lines that Sachs suggests. CNN even visited the town and loudly trumpeted it as a possible template for similar truces throughout the country.

And yet as a means to save lives, it failed miserably. From February to June, dozens of people in the town died from regime sniping and shelling. Relatives of fighters were arrested at the checkpoints surrounding the town. Finally, when the regime felt strong enough to retake Telkelakh in the wake of its conquest of Qusair, the army and Hizbollah invaded the town. Thirty rebel fighters who had surrendered on promises from regime representatives that their lives would be spared were never heard from again.

The regime’s behavior in other areas it has reconquered has been no less atrocious. Human Rights Watch has extensively documented the regime’s demolition of entire neighborhoods in Hama and Damascus that were in opposition to it. Thousands of homes were razed by the regime in areas it reconquered, in a horrendous display of mass punishment. Such punitive actions on the part of the regime on areas it had reconquered, and where all opposition to it had been extinguished, pretty much makes a complete mockery of Sachs’ assertions that the Syrian people have nothing to worry about if they only just surrendered themselves to Assad’s rule.

Sachs goes on to make another outlandish assertion, that political change from within Syria will more likely to lead to regime change than an armed conflict would. Sachs cites two examples; Myanmar, and Poland in 1989.

Oh dear, where do I begin. Sachs seems to deem the ongoing genocide in Myanmar against the minority Muslim Rohingya community to be irrelevant to the point he is trying to make. Poland in 1989 benefited from the reformist tendencies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who by that time wasn’t prepared to keep propping Eastern European client dictatorships with the USSR’s military might. If the Poles had tried in 1979 what they did in 1989, their political awakening would have been crushed under the tracks of Soviet tanks. In three years of the worst conflict in the country’s history, the regime of Bashar Assad has not once displayed the slightest capacity or capability for reforming itself.

There is no Gorbachev to be found within Assad. The post-war occupations of Japan and Germany transformed those societies because there was a vision in place for their reformation. Assad is a man who has proven himself utterly incapable of formulating any sort of vision to move the country beyond its current troubles. His approach to every problem has been to resort to increasingly horrendous levels of violence. Sachs actually thinks Assad is capable of allowing the sort of political awakening that happened in Poland? This is a man who today flings barrel bombs on Syrian cities like a monkey would throw feces around its cage. No, for the foreseeable future, in Syria, the only way to remove a bloody dictator is to kill him or have him die of old age.

In proposing ways of ending the conflict, Sachs puts the onus on the USA to change its policy towards the Assad regime, making only passing reference to Iran and Hizbollah’s massive aid to the Assad tyranny. Sachs, like so many Lefists, has got it so very backwards. If America cut off what little aid it sends to rebel groups, it would have no affect whatsoever on the conflict. And yet if Iran and Hizbollah withdrew their support for Assad, the regime would collapse within a matter of months.

What Jeffrey Sachs is calling for is appeasement, and it is the habit of appeasers to sanitize and whitewash the true intentions of those they hope to appease. Why fight Assad, the argument goes, all he wants is to preserve his rule.

Yes, why fight Hitler? All he wants is the Sudetenland. If Jeffrey Sachs had been around in 1938, Munich would have been exactly the kind of deal he would have written in favor of.

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FTAC – the Jewish Israeli Zionist Mossad Angle on a Classic Film – _The Good Shepherd_

09 Monday Dec 2013

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“By using composite or archetypal characters modeled on real CIA officers, by placing them in scenarios based on actual historical events, and by careful attention to sets, costumes, and other details, The Good Shepherd has a degree of authenticity, a documentary feel, reminiscent of Oliver Stone’s JFK. Intelligence officers should know about the many liberties the film takes with history, but those new to the profession or hoping to learn something about its history may not readily recognize the distortions.”

(The Good Shepherd — Central Intelligence Agency)

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Trust me to find the Jewish Israeli Zionist Mossad angle!

 “Under the heading of foreign intelligence, there was the Israeli desk, the Lovestone Empire, and a variety of smaller operations. The Israeli connection was of interest to Angleton for the information that could be obtained about the Soviet Union and aligned countries from émigrés to Israel from those countries and for the utility of the Israeli foreign intelligence units for operations in third countries. Angleton’s connections with the Israeli secret intelligence services were useful in obtaining from the Israeli Shin Bet a transcript of Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 speech to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress denouncing Joseph Stalin.” 

(James Jesus Angleton – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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One could not ask for more openness from an “open society”.

Our commanders show their faces.

Our secret agencies turn up their histories — and if I (or anyone else) want to travel down to M Street, Foggy Bottom, Georgetown, all of that, whether for romance or inspiration, insight or, it’s always possible, the “skinny”, one may do as much.

From the cookie jar to the nuclear arsenal, people lie only . . . to hide something or to get something.

It’s not a good thing even if in a good cause or a snooty one, perhaps.

It gets messy.

The film takes the viewer through the messiness, the spider’s web, the snake pit, the scorpion’s den.  In that, it may be much, much less about history and much, much more about diplomacy.

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▶ Skull And Bone: We Have the United States of America (Good Shepherd) – YouTube

Ouch!

In today’s America, personnel in government, every corner of it, in general — the exceptions will wind up in court, I’m certain — is the world’s “rainbow coalition”.

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I’ve a new page started on “Associated Articles of Governance – United States of America“.  The centuries-young mission has changed the character of the realpolitik, and for all the grousing and polarization, God knows it’s a great place for the portion of humanity inhabiting it and, despite the criticism and the bloody messaging, still a beacon to those suffering in the shadows of political tyranny.

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