AVOIDING ANOTHER ‘SLAM DUNK’? Columbia University’s Gary Sick, formerly an official in the National Security Councils of presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan, doesn’t think much of the House Intelligence committee report (.pdf) on the strategic threat posed by Iran, referenced below: … The author did not have the time or inclination to talk to any […]
Laura Rozen
Posted inPolitical Animal, Politics
IS THE MARKETING campaign against Iran begun? Here was the deputy director of operations for the joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon yesterday: The Iranian government is training and equipping much of the Shiite insurgency in Iraq, a senior U.S. general said Wednesday, drawing one of the most direct links by the Pentagon. … […]
Posted inPolitical Animal, Politics
Bolton and Niger Uranium Fiasco
Bolton and Niger Uranium Fiasco…. Steve Clemons has a post you will want to read about the previously undisclosed role of undersecretary of state and UN ambassador-nominee John Bolton in pushing bogus information contained in the forged “Niger uranium” documents in a fact sheet distributed at the United Nations, despite deep skepticism about the Niger […]
Posted inPolitical Animal, Politics
Overcoming Anti-Semitism in Europe’s Most Arab City
Overcoming Anti-Semitism in Europe’s Most Arab City….Regular readers of my site, War and Piece, may be aware that I like spy fiction (and non fiction). So I was drawn into this Jerusalem Post interview today with American spy novelist Claire Berlinski. The interview is not really about Berlinski’s spy novel, but about a fascinating article […]
Posted inPolitical Animal, Politics
Israel-US Policy Shifts
Israel-US Policy Shifts….Foreign policy is an outgrowth of domestic policy. In a shift left from the recent past, Israel is now reaching out to liberal Jewish groups for support of Ariel Sharon?s Gaza disengagement plan opposed by some American evangelical and ultra conservative groups, the Forward?s Ori Nir reports. Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Danny Ayalon, […]
Posted inPolitical Animal, Politics
Iran Tea Leaves
Iran Tea Leaves…Getting much attention this morning is a Times of London report that Israel has drawn up plans for an air and land assault on Iran?s nuclear facilities. And some specific plans are laid out. But let?s pause for a moment to suggest that drawing up plans is not the same thing as agreeing […]
Posted inMagazine
Con Tract
In the essay–which appeared in a 1999 dusty academic tome, Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the American Regime, Shulsky and Schmitt attempt to discern what the late political philosopher Leo Strauss would have said about the modes of thinking that dominate conventional U.S. intelligence analysis. Strauss was a mentor to many of the leading neoconservative […]
Posted inMagazine
Missing the Boat In Macedonia
If ever there was a conflict that Washington should have seen coming, this would seem to be it. Macedonia is not some mysterious, impenetrable land, like North Korea, where good intelligence is hard to come by. Thousands of GIs and scores of U.S. intelligence agents have been on the ground in that Balkan nation since […]
