All fair points, John. You are right that it's early days and strategic failure is absolutely possible, especially if the regime circles the wagons and no viable political opposition materializes. But on the early goals being met, I was taking my cue (among others) from Sir John Sawers in today's FT, whose assessments are usually quite astute.
Concerning Israel’s attacks on Iran going pretty well, let’s wait and see. This has been war-gamed to death over the years, and the outcome has always been only a temporary setback to Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran should respond by leaving the NPT, the loss of IAEA monitoring would be a major setback (after all, it’s how we know how much enriched Uranium and how many centrifuges of which kind Iran has). I’ve long viewed Israel as tactically brilliant, operationally very competent and strategically moronic (one of several examples: Lebanon 1982). And wars are won only on the strategic level.
I’ll be eager to see how Trump fares at the G7. Poorly, I imagine. Concerning Greenland (and Canada and Panama), Trump’s behavior cannot be understood rationally: he isn’t going to get what he says he wants, so his continued hammering away only alienates for no reason. This is one reason that I believe he is actually mentally ill. In a sense, his craziness is hiding in plain sight, as its manifestations are dismissed as mere bombast and bullying.
All fair points, John. You are right that it's early days and strategic failure is absolutely possible, especially if the regime circles the wagons and no viable political opposition materializes. But on the early goals being met, I was taking my cue (among others) from Sir John Sawers in today's FT, whose assessments are usually quite astute.
Concerning Israel’s attacks on Iran going pretty well, let’s wait and see. This has been war-gamed to death over the years, and the outcome has always been only a temporary setback to Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran should respond by leaving the NPT, the loss of IAEA monitoring would be a major setback (after all, it’s how we know how much enriched Uranium and how many centrifuges of which kind Iran has). I’ve long viewed Israel as tactically brilliant, operationally very competent and strategically moronic (one of several examples: Lebanon 1982). And wars are won only on the strategic level.
I’ll be eager to see how Trump fares at the G7. Poorly, I imagine. Concerning Greenland (and Canada and Panama), Trump’s behavior cannot be understood rationally: he isn’t going to get what he says he wants, so his continued hammering away only alienates for no reason. This is one reason that I believe he is actually mentally ill. In a sense, his craziness is hiding in plain sight, as its manifestations are dismissed as mere bombast and bullying.