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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   34226 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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Hamas Political Leader Ismail Haniyeh Killed in Iran, Organization Confirms

Hamas claims he died in a 'raid'. Pretty hilarious that after 10 months of puttering around the gulf states he goes to iran and instantly gets dropped. Iran really needs to worry about internal security rather than nukes.

Next time someone pretends to be horrified over Russia killing a guy in the UK just remember the amount of assassinations the US and Israel does.

  1. at that time UK was not bombing Russia, directly, via proxy or giving weapons to country bombing Russia. Also, UK was not calling Russia to be removed from the world map etc.

  2. I was horrified over Russia killing a guy in the UK mostly for strategic reasons, because that indicated Russia can kill people with impunity. I had cared almost nothing about far more people dying elsewhere in Africa or on Chinese/Indian border etc. I cared about this more for strategic reasons than ethical ones.

at that time UK was not bombing Russia

I don’t really see how assassinating Palestinians overseas becomes more palatable if you’re also gunning them down by the thousands with ground infantry.

Or is this a “One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic” thing?

I refer to fact that this assassination has targeted leader of organisation that declared war against Israel and performed large attack in addition to continuous regular attacks with rockets.

And they assassinated them in country that was using them as proxies and supporting them, and recently performed quite large attack on Israel.

You're decrying "assassination during war" on the grounds that "you're gunning enough of them down as it is"?

There's a principled ethical difference. Terrorists vs dissidents.

Why? Unironically, the US is good and kills bad guys, Russia is bad and kills good guys. There’s no reason to hold different parties to the same vague principle, abstracted and zoomed out to such a degree as to blur the line between good and evil.

I beg the differ. Unironically, Russia is good and kills bad guys. Besides, quite a lot of Israelis have Russian ancestry, up to the point of having just changed their surnames, and Israel would not exist if it weren't for Russian support.

Russia is one of the great historic nations, it's never going anywhere. No amount of spite will change the fact that they launched the first man in space or erase their contributions to art and science.

  • -12

Nah, launching a war of aggression and invading unprovoked, causing suffering and death to millions, is bad. Gulags are bad, communism is evil, and exporting it all over the world to the point that we still haven't recovered is even worse. What would Korea look like today if it weren't for the USSR, for example?

Quite a few Israelis have Russian ancestry and ran away to Israel due to persecution. Not all of them, but there's generally a reason why they're not in Russia anymore.

Russia as the USSR has backed, and is still backing today, Israel's enemies. There had been a short period around Israel's founding when the USSR did help us, which it should be credited for. That, however, was the USSR 70+ years ago rather than today's Russia.

But honestly, Israel is a small blip on the map of the world, we don't actually matter. A better approach would have been to talk about the USSR's role in defeating the Nazis - to which the obvious response should be that one evil fighting another is just the nature of evil, that doesn't turn it good.

launching a war of aggression and invading unprovoked

Lmao, It must feel nice to ignore geopolitics an completely ignore the US meddling in Ukraine's elections. i guess Russia should have just rolled over dead and allowed the US to completely cut it off from the Black sea. Get real.

  • -12

This is low effort and unnecessarily antagonistic, please don't post like this.

I’m confused, what’s wrong with Novorossiysk, and how did invading areas of Ukraine that don’t border the black sea at all is related to that?

While we’re at sea access though, why not invade Turkey to secure access to the Mediterranean? Or maybe invade Spain to secure access from there to the Atlantic?

why not invade Turkey to secure access to the Mediterranean

Can you imagine what the Russian casualties would look like if they attempted this considering how Ukraine is going for them? This is discounting any outside direct NATO intervention I think just Turkey would have annihilated their expeditionary force to the last man.

Russia regained the Black Sea in 2014.

it's never going anywhere

And for my ensuring that it hold true in geographic sense is personally quite important to me.

Unironically, Russia is good

Well, Eastern Europe is going to disagree for obvious reasons.

I'm Eastern European.

Serbian? Belarussian?

Croatian (OK you caught me, South-Eastern European? But so are Serbs.)

Needless to say your nationality does not determine your stance, and I am sick and tired of these generalizations, as if we are all reducible to your average Redditor.

Well, Russians themselves and few people will disagree. But approval of Russian government and of Russia is remarkably low there (obviously, not 0 and for example in Slovakia it may be relatively high).

they launched the first man in space or erase their contributions to art and science.

How is that even remotely relevant to figuring out whether what they're doing now is good or bad?

The claim was literally "Russia is bad", so I felt that it could be countered by listing a few achievements of world-historic significance that benefited all of mankind off the top of my head

How many wanton land grabs does, in your opinion, one first man in space buy? Are historical achievements time-discounted?

Next time some country decides to invade Russia I won't say a word about what Russia does to the opponent's leaders.

Who has said that it would be against the rules of war for either part to kill the opposing side’s leader in this case?

Assassinations have never been a mainstay of warfare. The 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not orchestrated by any European power, and the aftermath led to the outbreak of WWI. In WWII for example assassinations were not a method of warfare except by Partisans in only a few notable cases, and today we refer to Partisan warfare as 'terrorism'.

During the Cold War the attempted assassinations of Castro and other foreign leaders was a huge scandal when it was made public and Ford, Carter, and Reagan all issued Executive Orders prohibiting assassinations by any agent of the US government. The KGB engaged in some assassinations of dissidents, but the huge reliance on assassination for waging warfare by Israel and Mossad is unique to Israel and not precedented in the history of warfare. They heavily rely on assassinations to wage war and manipulate political proceedings and negotiations, probably more than any other country in history combined.

I don't want to be class reductivist. But no shit it's not a mainstay of warfare - because the methods and norms of warfare are set by the ruling elites and they obviously don't want to be in the firing line of reciprocal action. Do you think the 50,000 American guys that died in Vietnam would have preferred a series of assassination attempts on leadership or key figures to stem the spread of communism, even if it meant that Kissinger or William Rogers might have their cars blown up (I have no evidence or intuition that this would me more effective, nor do I intend to defend that position), or would the ungentlemanly breaking of norms upset them too much?

I think this is a bit orthogonal to the topic, though. "Decapitating enemy leadership" has arguably always been a "legitimate" (insofar as such things can be "legitimate" when you go down to the level of primitive, tribal tit-for-tat) strategy in warfare. The rebel army seeks to overthrow the Emperor, killing him if necessary; the Emperor is in his right to demand the rebel leader's head on a pike; rival kingdoms are perfectly fine with the enemy bloodline being extirpated, and so on. Consider the Ferguson, the 18-Century rifle that could have been used to assassinate George Washington.

The 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not orchestrated by any European power

This is an unfortunate example to have chosen. I just finished reading The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark, who goes to great lengths to show the involvement official and semi-official Serbia in the assassination plot.

In particular, Dragutin Dimitrijević (a.k.a. "Apis") was both chief of Serbian military intelligence and a leading member of the Black Hand. According to Clark, he was "the principle architect behind the plot". Serbian officer Major Vojislav Tankosić also played a key role training and arming the Princip and co.

The relationship of the Black Hand and other Serbian irredentist groups to "official" Serbia was also complicated. Lots of members of the Serbian officer corps and intelligence service were more or less openly members, and the groups existed with the tacit approval and often support of the government and its institutions. Indeed, much of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia concerns demands that "official" Serbia divorce itself from these groups and networks.

Clark also alleges that Prime Minister Nikola Pašić was forewarned of the plot and even tried to send a clumsy warning to the Austrians.

Seems like pretty thin evidence, "two degrees of separation" notwithstanding. What it does prove is how the practice itself is a sort of Pandora's Box. Everybody was scandalized by the assassination, no European power took credit for it. It led to a massively destructive war.

So now that Israel has embraced and normalized the practice as S.O.P in engaging in warfare, what are we to make of it? It's dangerous at best. They know they could start a regional war by conducting assassinations in Tehran. That's the point. They want a regional war so they can drag America to their defense.

The 1914 plot is a very good example for how and why the practice has not been used in warfare in the past. Imagine if the US engages in a Proxy war with China, and China starts assassinating US politicians or sending mailbombs to civilian factory workers. All hell would break lose.

Seems like pretty thin evidence

In my view, the case as made in the book is pretty strong that official Serbia bears significant responsibility for the assassination. Clark spends about the first third of the book tracing the history of Serbian irredentism, the relationships between terrorist irredentist groups, and the Serbian officer corps and the civilian politicians. These guys were trying to maintain secrecy and plausible deniability, so by its very nature the case relies on some circumstantial evidence. That said, I wouldn't describe the evidence as "thin" - I found myself pretty well convinced.

So now that Israel has embraced and normalized the practice as S.O.P in engaging in warfare, what are we to make of it?

If you haven't read it, I expect you'd enjoy Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. Isreal's targeted assassination programmes have been extensive ever since they began hunting Nazis post-WW2 - the author credits them with "at least" 2,700 since then, which is to say this isn't something the've embraced and normalised recently.

Clearly, whatever our assessment is, at least some important decision makers within the Israeli state think it's an effective means of achieving their goals - and have done for a while for now.

List of American assassinations

List of Russian assassinations

Looking at the list of American assassinations is jarring in that they are entirely after September 11th, in the context of the Middle East conflict and America's alliance with Israel. Israel's tradition of using assassination for political purposes and warfare goes back decades before. Certainly the evidence you've posted bolsters the case that these types of assassinations are brand new in the history of warfare and were introduced and normalized by Israel's methods in Palestine.

Russia is more comparable example. But take those two lists, the American and Russian, and compare that to the list of Israeli assassinations.

These lists would indeed suggest that Israel's reliance on assassinations in engaging in warfare is not precedented in world history.

Items 2 and 4 in the US list encompasses thousands of individuals. Vietnam alone includes more individual assassinations than the entire rest of the list. The US has assassinated so many people, you can't even get an accurate number or a list of names. That the Israeli list is so exhaustive is evidence against your claim.

Honestly, just the word "assassination" with its history is evidence against your claim.

The Phoenix Program was a counter-insurgency program, not created as an assassination program. Nobody considers all the Hamas killed in Gaza in 9 months to have been "assassinated." The assassinations mentioned in that Wikipedia article include things like car-bombing political figures and civilians, or sniping somebody in the back while they are in their garden.

i.e. from a Veteran of the program:

The biggest myth coming out of Vietnam was that perpetrated by non-veterans of the Phoenix Program. I am constantly amazed at the number of postings in various forums describing the "truth" about Phoenix. As a veteran of the program - Go Cong and An Xuyen from Jan 1969 to Jan 1970 - I see several problems.

First and foremost, the "assassination" question. We had definite orders to the contrary. We also had orders to report such activities we had knowledge of. Were people killed? Of course. In my tour, going over notes about my tour I accumulated in preparation for writing a book on the subject, we had tens killed in military operations. For example, in one battle in upper Thoi Binh, the PRUs [Provincial Reconnaissance Unit, or counter-terror team] were suckered into an ambush by the VCI [Viet Cong Infrastructure, or political agents]. However, they wisely deployed differently than normal and sprang a counter attack. Outnumbered, the PRUs asked for reinforcements. The Province responded and over the next two days, about 150 VC were killed. A number were VCI. We got the credit for the kills, but it was an all out pitched military battle and the numbers are counted in the "assassinations" figures spouted by the uninformed.

Even so, especially because much of the violence fell under the gray area of "assassination", the program was denounced and disbanded.

This stands in sharp contrast to the long history of assassinations in Israel where it's a matter of official policy and a longstanding pattern of behavior.

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Trump assassinated a more senior Iranian figure than any that Mossad has targeted. The FSB regularly uses assassinations. I hardly think it’s unique.

In WWII for example assassinations were not a method of warfare except by Partisans in only a few notable cases, and today we refer to Partisan warfare as 'terrorism'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vengeance

You just linked to a battle, at a military installation on a battlefield. The Czech partisan assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on the streets of Prague is more similar to the type of assassinations we are talking about here, the ones that have been made ubiquitous and normalized by Zionist operation in Palestine.

I don’t think anyone in this thread brought up the rules of war, but functor was pretty clearly holding Israel to a different standard than Russia.

Functor, by implication.

What are the implications for the internal division within Hamas between the political wing and the military wing?

That's impressive. They had intel on exactly where he was, launched a missile from Israel(?) and hit the precise building?

I'm pretty sure they just boobie trapped the apartment they knew he would be staying in.

I think Iran is one of those totally corrupt countries where not being corrupt is seen as a sign of stupidity not honor.

What makes you say that?

Stuff I've read over the years including about the lifestyles of the children of the ruling clerics.

There's the Israel conflict but there's also always the Sunni -- Shia conflict simmering in the background.

Haniyeh likely had enemies in Iran who were willing to tip of Israel.

There's the Israel conflict but there's also always the Sunni -- Shia conflict simmering in the background.

Is there really sunni shia conflict or just in such a mess people just sticking to their tribes. Aka - if suddenly there was overlord that gave security and GDP growth, will they still try to kill each other or not?

Yes, there are relatively wealthy Sunnis and Shias continuing to bomb and pogrom each other. See Saudi Arabia’s internal affairs.

Academically-inclined Islamists, certainly Sunni ones, very much do care and hate Shiites for being apostates. Historically most conversion has been in the Shia -> Sunni direction although the alternative isn’t unheard of.

In general conversion is pretty rare today though, and mostly happens for marriage. But I wouldn’t discount very strong sectarian feelings among Arab Muslims.

But I very much doubt this intelligence came from Sunnis, just from paid off Mossad sources inside Iran whose foreign accounts (or those of their family) have likely swelled significantly from this tip-off.

Whatever you think of their politics, you do really have to hand it to Israel. With a population of 10 million (many of them Arabs and useless Talmud scholars) they seem to have a state capacity greater than all the other Middle East states combined.

And while this is amplified by US support, Israeli's military is much more effective than the U.S. per dollar. And of course diplomacy is a skill too. Sucking up to the US is a useful strategy. Iran should try it.

What's Iran going to do now? Lob another 300 slow-moving drones into Israel so that Israel can shoot down 299 of them? One of these countries matters. The other is a joke.

It's as if someone asked Netanyahu if he planned to just fight every country that challenges Israel, and he just replied with that Mediterranean Chad gif.

Iran can start attacking every vessel in the strait of Hormuz and cause a global recession.

We don't know what kind of outcome Iran was aiming for last time, it might have just been a token retaliation, and thus not an accurate demonstration of their actual ability to strike Israel. If they were actually trying to strike Israel, they would first overwhelm missile defenses with rockets from Lebanon, where they have the capacity to do so. Iran's failed strike against Israel was symbolic. A real strike would start with waves of rockets from Lebanon.

This is a dumb take because Iran launched 300+ drones and missiles in what became the first large scale test of Israel’s Iron Dome.

They did not expect 99% of those to be shot out of the sky.

That’s not a “token” or “symbolic” response just because it turns out to have been militarily ineffective. They did not use Hezbollah because when Hezbollah does decide to go all out then Israel will invade. It’s kind of a one time option.

In contrast, Israel’s response to the first overt attack from Iran was to destroy a key air defense system.

Now that Iranians know the ineffectiveness of their first try, yes, they will have to up their game to try to overwhelm the missile defenses, including coordination with a major launch from Hezbollah.

If Iran starts attacking commercial shipping then the US Navy will make the Iranian navy disappear pretty rapidly.

I think what happened was: Iran for domestic reasons needed to attack Israel but didn't want a war with the US. The US didn't want a war with Iran. Israel wanted the US to go to war with Iran. Iran and the US figured out a way for Iran to attack and the US to respond without the US going to war with Iran. So Israel kind of lost.

Lob another 300 slow-moving drones into Israel so that Israel can shoot down 299 of them? One of these countries matters. The other is a joke.

Even if we accept the propaganda that they shot every drone down, it's still a clear Iranian victory. They forced Israel to use far more resources to defend themselves than Iran lost attacking. Most of those drones are hardly worth an hour of keeping a fighter jet in the air, let alone the air to air missiles or ludicrously expensive ABMs.

They could fling 3000 drones at Israel and saturate air defences, that's what matters. Hezbollah's forced Israel to abandon much of Northern Israel with it's missile barrages: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/in-israels-evacuated-north-lives-suspended-upended

I think this tweet is a pretty effective summary of the recent direct Iran-Israel hostilities that started with April's missile attack.

The "it costs more to shoot down than it costs us to build" logic applies to asymmetrical warfare, not to a hypothetical direct war between Iran and Israel.

Iran is not some terrorist group living in the hills. They are a country which has actual targets for Israel to retaliate against. Here's how the math might work.

  • Cost of drones: X

  • Cost to shoot down drones: 3X

  • Cost of retaliatory mission: 5X

  • Damage caused by retaliatory mission: 100X

This last step is what Israel can do to Iran which they can't do to, for example, the Houthis. Iran has plump targets. How much is their oil industry worth?

Israel has proven they can fly a mission over Iran which Iran can't detect, then assassinate a target whose location is top secret. It's a stunning display of power. And Iran may lack the capacity to retaliate at all except via its terrorist proxies.

And escalation means that Iran's top leaders will be killed. They can be got to. No one is safe.

Russia has been intensively bombing Ukraine with thousands of missiles for several years and they have not yet broken a country of 30-40 million. Iran is twice as populous. There is nothing that Israel can do to greatly harm Iran short of a nuclear strike or a US invasion, at which point we may learn how well developed the Iranian nuclear program really is. Assassinating leaders does not matter, it's totally irrelevant.

Meanwhile, Iran can fire off hundreds or thousands of missiles in a non-telegraphed attack for a change, overwhelm the Iron Dome and demolish Israel's first-world high-tech economy. Israel is a small country, it is inherently easier to bomb and wreck than Iran. Nobody is going to build chip factories in a warzone. Oil is stuck in the ground, laptop workers and tech companies can leave for safer climates.

Does Iran want to get into a massive painful struggle with Israel and presumably the US? No. But their patience is not unlimited. It's not 2003 anymore, Americans have gotten a little less gullible about these Middle Eastern wars. It's not 2003 anymore, Western firepower apparently can't deal with little countries like Yemen. Times have changed and Israel should adjust its tactics to meet the new situation.

Russia has been intensively bombing Ukraine with thousands of missiles for several years and they have not yet broken a country of 30-40 million.

Russia isn't waging a total war of destruction with Ukraine. It would be extremely easy for them to destroy power delivery infrastructure and this water supply if they wanted to.

If anything, despite what western propaganda would tell you, they've tried to minimize civilian casualties. Meanwhile the Ukrainians are using civilian housing, hospitals, schools, what have you

they've tried to minimize civilian casualties

They have not tried to maximally maximize it, and they are not yet fully on Syrian bombing strategy but... They have not exactly tried to minimize them

It would be extremely easy for them to destroy power delivery infrastructure

We know that it is not extremely easy because they tried and succeeded only partially, that is why they now switched mostly to destruction of power stations. It is not clear how well they succeed but it seems to be going better for Russia. Still, far from "extremely easy".

(unless you claim that they kept attacking power infrastructure because they had too many rockets and no good use for them or something)

Russia isn't waging a total war of destruction with Ukraine

One notable reason is that it is hard for them to escalate further without use of nuclear weapons. They already using nearly full available resources (OK, not all forces were pulled from NATO and Chinese border - though very significant part was).

"We can hypothetically launch more drones at you and actually do harm" after launching a few is not a victory in itself. It looks like they won very public assassinations of their allies and vassal leaders on their home turf. What else did they win?

The problem with launching 3000 drones is that is usually called a war and they don't want that kind of war. Whereas Israel appears to be asking for one or certain they won't get one. Israel did say they'd kill all Hamas leadership, so maybe there's an understanding. That's what proxies are for. Dying so you don't have to.

Israel can't defend its own citizens on its own soil, they're hardly doing better than Iran. Rockets are constantly getting through their missile defences because missile defence (at least the missile defence Israel is trying to do) fundamentally is not cost-efficient. Northern Israel has basically been abandoned because of this. Every so often drones hit Tel Aviv, the Houthis snuck one through just a few days ago.

One year in, Israel has failed to destroy Hamas. They've blown up a lot of Gaza, yes, but they don't control the territory and they haven't beaten the weakest of their three primary enemies. As soon as the IDF gets sick of being ambushed and pull out of any one part of Gaza, Hamas moves right back in. I can tell you that Israel didn't recently decide to start bombing Hamas leaders, they've been doing this for years. That was their mowing the lawn strategy. They do this all the time and it clearly doesn't work because just after the last exchange of rockets and bombs we had October 7th:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/mow-lawn-israel%E2%80%99s-strategy-perpetual-war-palestinians-185775

So many people here are posting as if this is another crushing Israeli victory like the Six Day War. It's not!

Israel can't defend its own citizens on its own soil

That's true. I would call a new neighboring government in Gaza that only required minimal military action to maintain on a path to a formal state recognition would be a victory, but many Israelis would not. Politics has them in a perpetually compromised position. They punch above their weight imo.

As soon as the IDF gets sick of being ambushed and pull out of any one part of Gaza, Hamas moves right back in.

Yeah they've done the 'mowing the grass' strategy for a long time. It's management, not solution, which is probably the best they can ask for with the parameters set. It's one of a few options they can do when there's no desire to officially rule a territory or go all the way via violence.

Israel is not impervious to rockets landing in the country. I'm not too interested in talking about how important or effective Iron Dome is. All I said was that if Iran's great show of force doesn't deter actions such as this strike on a target supposedly nearby Iranian officials, then what great success is that show of force? Just because Israel has targeted Hamas and Hezbollah leaders before, and will again, does not make the strike insignificant.

I also don't see many people calling the current state this conflict a victory for Israel. Shills are very optimistic as ever. Resistance types still insist it is a fake and gay country filled with Jews. The current state of the conflict seems about right. Maybe better than they could hope for considering what they were prepared for when it came to entering Gaza. Having an actionable plan for governing the territory, or transitioning power there, seems like it would've been a pretty good idea to get going 9 months ago. Perhaps that's impossible too, but I suspect that's mostly political as well.

There's a lot of brain worms when it comes to Israel. Oh well that's cyber for ya.

Have these decapitation strikes ever had any major effect? Al-Qaeda is still fighting a decade after Osama's death. ISIS outlived Al-Baghdadi and is still present in some places, albeit greatly weakened after getting dumpstered by the combined efforts of 3/4 of the UN.

To beat these groups you actually have to wipe them out. They are nothing if not resilient.

Haniyeh wasn’t in charge of military operations, he was in charge of policy. He’s kinda like the president of Hamas, not a general. If used right, I think it’s good to assassinate uncooperative leaders like that.

Maybe the next guy will be more willing to negotiate for the hostages’ return, in exchange for his own life. It’s certainly good to put some fear into these guys’ hearts.

When trying to negotiate a settlement, assassinate the guy on the other side of the table

I'm not sure this is a wise tactic, especially in a hostage situation. Either commit to total victory or seek a negotiated agreement.

Why not? It’s creating an incentive structure in the correct direction. Until now, Hamas leadership was feeling perfectly safe and comfortable sending their people to die for them while they sit on a growing pile of money in Qatar. Now they might feel they have skin in the game.

I dunno, I reckon it's a pretty effective tactic.

"Take this deal."

"No."

Bang

"Congratulations on your promotion, new guy. Now, take this deal."

If it's so effective, why hasn't Israel won yet? They blow up Hamas leaders all the time. They've done this for decades. Blowing up leaders was a good chunk of US counter-insurgency doctrine too.

Can you think of a single war that was won by assassinating the enemy's leader? I can't.

There's no shortcut to winning, you have to actually defeat your enemies the hard way.

Haven't Israel won though? They still exist and are expanding and expelling. Hasn't the US achieved no major islamic terrorist attacks or plots that aren't 90% federal agents in the us since 9/11?

That's basically the "negotiation" scene from The Fifth Element. Or that one Firefly episode.

The firefly episode is great, he just kicks him in to the engine and starts the same spiel with the next guy.

I think that current Israel leadership know they need total victory for permanent safety, so it makes sure that any other outcome is impossible, no matter the US pressure on both sides.

current Israel leadership know they need total victory for permanent safety

The whole idea of "permanent safety" is such a ridiculous conception of a policy goal that it says a lot about the mendacity and stupidity of the American foreign policy intelligentsia that it's taken seriously as a condition for a peace process.

Is it, though?

Ceasefire is pretty central to the narrative.

... I'm lost here about what point you're making.

That the State Department, and the likely appointees to SoS on the R side come a Trump victory in November, accept Permanent Security and an entirely neutered Palestinian reservation as a serious idea that Israel will pursue seems unrelated to Oxfam's desire for a ceasefire.

Maybe I misunderstood who you had in mind as “foreign policy intelligentsia.”

I think if you asked the average pro-Palestine demonstrator if there should be a ceasefire, they’d say yes. Even though it doesn’t pretend to be a lasting solution, a lot of the messaging is about how Gazans are dying now, and stopping that is a core goal.

I think organizers and theorists would say something similar. The Rorschach option isn’t mainstream.

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They already tried the whole "live with a certain amount of rocket fire and hope your enemies are rational and indolent enough to just live off the aid money" strat

Is it? Germany and Japan haven't caused trouble in almost a century. There hasn't been armed conflict involving US in the Americas since Granada I think. And even covert after the mid 2000s.

I mean yes, it would be a good strategy for the Jews in Israel to move to America if they desire to be part of a massive hegemon well liked by its smaller neighbors. If they wish to remain a small, ethnically distinct enclave then they will have problems with this situation.

Further, Germany would definitely be a threat to any of its neighbors, if it weren't for the EU, which makes it less than beneficial for Germany to do so. France didn't keep Germany down by grinding it into a permanently dependent statelet with no power and no independence, rather they built a mutually beneficial structure for European integration in which Germans have been prime beneficiaries. The punitive theory failed and was discredited after Versailles. The idea of German revanchism for Alsace-Lorraine is silly, because any German that wanted to do so could move there tomorrow. Germany's and Japan's participation in Washington Consensus institutions is what keeps them on the leash, not permanent occupation.

Alas, my half serious suggestion of settling the Zionists near Zion National Park and having them share the American Zion state with the Mormons was never considered a real option.

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It does matter in the cases where the leaders are less fanatical than their followers. We can get to you and your families if needed sends a strong message.

Unless it's a cult of personality, it probably only has an incremental effect. But incremental effects matter.

The goal isn't necessarily to wipe out every last terrorist. It's to disrupt their operations to the point where they can't do as much damage.

The danger, of course, is that by killing an elderly kleptocrat you clear the path for a more effective leader. I wouldn't worry about that here. The next leader will have a life expectancy measured in months, so I doubt we'll see a lot of high-quality volunteers.

Hard agree. Taking out a member of leadership will create organizational chaos. There will be a lot of balls dropped before their successor gets up to speed.

Bin Laden’s death really was a big blow to AQ, because it was pretty dependent on his personal genius and financial connections. ISIS and Hamas and Hezbollah are more along the lines of a military, where it’s designed so that each officer or commander is fungible and can be replaced if killed.

Hezbollah would find it hard to replace Nasrallah soon, though. That said, Israel has seemingly chosen not to kill him out of the belief that he moderates the group.

I mean, Nasrallah is functionally a hostile country-leader. Israel isn’t killing the Ayatollah either.

Also, I don’t think Israel wants to degrade the leadership structure too much, because it’s easier to have one organization you can negotiate with rather than five hundred separate cells all doing their own thing.

One big organisation means co-ordination, unity and economies of scale. Five hundred separate cells are more likely to be a danger to themselves than neighboring nations.

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