I don't have an amazing intelligence operation, though my intelligence is amazing. ;-) Israel has an amazing intelligence operation, though. And your talking point came straight out of the left yesterday, as far as staying in the Iranian nuclear deal rather then dumping it and starting over with those folks.

Personally, I think the Iranian people are great. Generous and kind and very on top of things. However, they aren't in charge. A bunch of 11th century medievalists with weird ideas about bringing on the apocalypse are in charge. That's where the problem lies with Iran. As soon as they can, they will develop a nuclear weapon and we will all stand around just as shocked as we were when North Korea did so. That's not a good look for us or for the West in general.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Yeah, but they probably shouldn't be able to just unplug the centrifuges and call it all good.

Seems there are various areas that the information gathered by the Israelis addresses. The Obama admin was going to get a deal at all costs, and learned little about the military dimension, ultimately taking the assurance of the religious and political muckety-muks that their religion would never allow for the making of a nuclear weapon. Eli Lake hits on some important points in this piece:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-30/israel-exposes-iran-nuclear-lies-and-limits-of-u-s-intelligence

Steven Simon also hits on some important points: https://nyti.ms/2Fy8Pd6


There are some big discrepancies between those two takes.

Is that supposed to be in pink? Files containing information that apparently everyone already knew dated from around 2003 taken from a dilapidated, unguarded warehouse is the greatest intelligence op of the 21st century we know about?

Better than locating OBL? Or even the 2010 Stuxnet attack?

What's second place on your list, nabbing Reality Winner?

That's your characterization of the grab, which is fine with me. But what I'm talking about is the ability of covert (Israeli) personnel physically maneuvering around deep in the heart of bad guy territory right under the noses of said bad guys to pull this off. That's some impressive and audacious work, right there.

As far as OBL, Pakistan hosted a CIA presence, and most of the work done to find OBL was carried out in countries nominally allied with the US, or through ELINT (electronic intelligence) channels, both in the US and allied nations. That tended to lessen the likelihood of physical danger to many of the people involved (though there was hazard to the operators out in the field, for sure). This excludes the raid itself, when specops/specwar folks and CIA paramilitaries went in to OBL's compound to do the physical work, which could have easily resulted in many of them killed It was also apparently live-blogged by a few neighbors. How crazy is that?

To be clear, some CIA folks have bought the farm during the GWOT, no doubt about it. Mike Spann, the Agency paramilitary operator killed very early in the Afghanistan effort, was one. And most especially that female spy runner and her folks that got lit up by that suicide bomber in Afghanistan some years back. And who of us really knows just what sort of HUMINT (human intelligence) assets we have in the Islamic Republic? It could be we have an extensive network of on-the-ground folks in Tehran and elsewhere. I hope we do.

Stuxnet was also great, but it was most likely a bunch of computer geeks sitting in the basement over at NSA. How does that compare to outlandish bravery and the kind of intelligence/spy tradecraft of which Robert Ludlum or John LeCarre novels are made? Tracking down and then getting a half-ton of classified information out of the heart of bad guy territory was outlandishly crazy. Since this was an Israeli/Mossad op, the word I'd use for it is "chutzpah."

C'mon, man; if true, what the Israelis did was deep-blue hero stuff. Give 'em the props they deserve on that front, at least. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

What I've learned over the decades with the Iranians is to never take ANYTHING they say at face value. This goes back to the late-1970s, early 80s (where they had a presence in Beirut with the Shiite Amal militia that eventually became Hezbollah, or "Party of God") and when we were mixing it up with them in the Arabian/Persian Gulf in the mid-to-late-1980s, something I know from personal, first-hand experience. Today, they want to complete a kind of land bridge or link from Syria to Beirut and work on encircling Israel while also taking down in detail each Gulf Arab state that opposes them.

They also lie to Western nations constantly, mostly because they believe that any lie told is permissible in defense of their faith (Sunni Muslim Twelver, with a deep apocalyptic streak). They're still the world's number-one state sponsor of terrorism and they've bombed or otherwise killed many people in a number of different countries, including Argentina. They've been personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen and servicewomen (not to mention government civilian personnel) over the decades and especially since our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anyone with two brain cells they can rub together understands the above about Iran's ruling regime of ayatollahs, mullahs, imams and fanatic Republican Guard types.

Personally, I never believed the JCPOA would do much to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, just as not being in the JCPOA won't do anything to stop them as well. So I don't really care whether we stay in the deal with Iran or not. Mostly, because the JCPOA is like that piece of paper that Neville Chamberlain waved around upon his return from Munich. It's a nice sentiment, but in the end it will be useless. The truly hard work for the West and its allies will come once the Iranians gain a nuclear weapon. Then we're going to have some extremely difficult choices to make.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Sure. That's why the "weapons deal" was made instead of just believing them when they said they weren't developing nuclear weapons.


I think we should stick by our deal if the terms of the deal are being met. Even if it didn't go through Congress, etc.

If the term were violated, we should absolutely pull out.

And it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the terms are being violated, and there's a secret program. But we got exactly zero evidence of that yesterday.

But if we pull out without the terms being violated, I have no idea how we can expect North Korea to trust us in making a new deal with them. It gives the impression to the world that when you deal with the U.S. you're just dealing with a personality (e.g. Obama or Trump), and not dealing with a state. And that every new personality will just rip up what the last one did.

There's a chance that Israel views U.S. intelligence as tainted post Iraq WMD and thus chose to present their case to the world on their own. Don't forget the Begin Doctrine is alive and well in Israel. If they feel threatened (and why shouldn't they? Iran's leaders routinely call for Israel's destruction) they will act.

People don't realize this but the SpaceX BFR will radically change geopolitics. It will make Project Thor technically and economically viable. Nukes for small states will become completely irrelevant because they would have no means of protecting them (even Iran's deepest and most hardened bunker wouldn't stand a chance against a "Rod from God"). Russia would be relatively unaffected as it's warheads are spread out over a vast area and many of them are mounted on SLBMs.

Have you been smoking weed and reading reddit while watching Expanse?

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My training

Well I think it depends on what the deal is. As usual, North Korea will likely want goodies.

So I think if we have to give billions to North Korea and the inspection terms aren't at least to Iran-standards, then we could certainly get people who don't vote for it. If South Korea pays (or Mexico!) pays for everything, then it'd be essentially a freebie.

Trump first needs to get Bolton on board, though. Bolton doesn't seem to hold this sudden turn around in high regard, and he's specifying that denuclearization be Libya-style, e.g. literally packing up every bit of equipment and material and flying it to the U.S. Kim Jong Un knows how that story ends.

North Korea had mentioned wanting a declaration by the U.S. to never attack North Korea. I don't see anyone Congressman ever signing that, unless it had so many exceptions listed as to be essentially meaningless.

In any case, it's not clear if this deal would go through Congress either. So far it's just pillow talk, and Trump seems to have no more deference for the Constitutional balance of government than Obama did.

Nope. https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Kinetic_bombardment