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IRAN’S PROXY WAR WITH ISRAEL

While it might be hard to tell sometimes, this is actually a blog that has something to do with foreign policy. After some appropriate links, my comments on the war between Israel and the PA, various terrorist groups, Islamist militias and their state supporters, Syria and most importantly, Iran.

Blogging the War:

Abu Aardvark, Atlas Shrugged, Aqoul , American Footprints, American Future, Austin Bay, Belmont Club, Bliss Street Journal, Captain’s quarters, Collounsbury, Chicago Boyz, Centerfield, Cliopatria, Coming Anarchy, Counterterrorism Blog, Dan Drezner, Deja Vu, Democracy Project,
Glittering Eye, Global Guerillas, History Unfolding, Instapundit, Iraq the Model, Juan Cole, Memeorandum, Michael Totten, Middle East Perspectives, OPFOR, Penraker, Rightwing Nuthouse, Shloky, Sic Semper Tyrannis, SyriaComment, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Whirledview

Now that the Right, the Left, the Middle, scholars, amateurs, soldiers, strategists, journalists, partisans and professors have had their say, I’ll weigh in with a brief analysis:

Iran, and specifically Ahmadinejad’s faction in the leadership, have sought to provoke Israel into action for some time now. Scratch Hezbollah enough and you find the Pasdaran – particularly when Hezbollah suddenly demonstrates newfound military capabilities.

Conflict serves to strengthen Ahmadinejad’s hand and allow Shiite Iran to pose as the champion of Islam against the “Zionist Entity”- a goal of the late Ayatollah Khomeini and a dual propaganda blow against both the conservative Sunni monarchies of the gulf and the radical Salafist movement that regards Shiites as “apostates”. Provoking Israel distracts the Europeans away from Iran’s illegal, covert, nuclear weapon program and toward the more comfortable and politically safer topic of condemning Israel for defending itself.

On the Israeli side of the equation, it is evident that invading Lebanon will not get any kidnapped soldiers back nor is it intended to do so. It is primarily intended to disrupt the Hezbollah, Pasdaran and Syrian intelligence networks in Southern Lebanon and secondarily as a punitive expedition against Lebanon for Hezbollah’s ( read Iran and Syria’s) transgressions. In principle a good thing, but it would be of more practical use directed against Syria and cause Israel far less political damage. The Lebanese state may be passively complicit in Hezbollah’s attacks and be legally responsible, but Damascus is actively complicit as Iran’s satellite, and is a better target in terms of maintaining Israel’s moral legitimacy. The Lebanese government no more controls its own territory than the Governor of Maine controls the Mexican border.

If Israel rolls through Lebanon, destroys and disperses the Hezbollah network, hangs Nasrallah or some other notorious figure from a nearby tree and gets out quickly, the Israelis will at least win some tactical gains. They will also send a message to Syria and Iran that proxy warfare is going to be regarded as warfare – particularly if some Syrian infrastructure takes some heavy hits along the way. If Olmert drags the military process out and replays Begin’s televisually shocking seige of Beirut, he courts strategic defeat.

As for the soldiers, they will only return through quiet negotiations, if at all, after the dust settles.

UNCERTAINTY AND PRECISION IN ANALYZING COMPLEXITY

Dr. Von had a timely and useful post today, one that will interest Steve, Dave and Curtis among others, addressing the issue of using network theory as a predictive model for social networks. In ” Will we ever be able to predict what social systems and networks will do? Perhaps globally, but likely not locally” Von differentiates between systems and individuals in terms of rule sets:

“In a physical system this is similar to studying gases. We can in principle use Newton’s laws to predict what should happen to individual atoms and molecules, but collectively we need to resort to a statistical/probabilistic approach. Collectively, there are set probability distribution functions for something like molecular speed, but that is meaningless to an individual molecule of the gas. In social systems, we are dealing with complex, unpredictable individual agents that make up the system, and this makes things considerably more difficult to analyze than a gas, whose individual agents are governed by deterministic rules (at least to a good approximation using classical physics). It will be quite difficult to accurately model emotion and religious fanaticism, for example, for individuals in a social system. We can guess and try to take a statistical approach, but this leaves some degree of uncertainty in results and predictions. It will be very difficult to model and predict what is going on in the head of a leader such as Osama bin Laden; there is a good deal we can only guess at, even though there has been research and progress in figuring out how his larger terror network operates and is structured. This is the difference between local and global environments and rulesets.”

The post should be read in full.

I’ll have a (somewhat distantly) related post up later tonight.

WAS I A VICTIM OF A “WHITE NOISE” CAMPAIGN?

John Robb points to this very disturbing post by Larry Johnson that indicates that the furor over SWIFT might have been a distraction from a leak that was a far more serious and damaging national security. (Yes, I’m aware that Larry tends to hyperventilate about politics but he also has actual expertise worth considering).

My basic position remains the same as with SWIFT – these leaks are remarkably unhelpful and must stop, which means that ” bigfoot” leakers – those filling positions from the EOB apex down to the deputy assistant secretary level, plus the CSRA 1978 “superclass” of senior bureaucrats and key Congressional staffers – need to be prosecuted and do some jail time. Yeah, a whistleblower exception makes sense but only if narrowly defined.

So, I may very well have blown the call on SWIFT, and for that I apologize. A good reminder for me to “watch your friends as closely as your adversaries”. Thank you, John.

Have to pick up that Susskind book…..

100,000th VISITOR !

Zenpundit crossed the 100,000 mark this morning with a visit from a reader at NASA !

The anonymous visitor has won “the Musashi” award in recognition for their fine contribution.

NEW TO THE BLOGROLL

Smartmobs

The Cooperation Blog

Readers with a bent toward futurism, technology and social change will enjoy these two blogs quite a bit.

Gracious thanks to Dave Davison, Howard Rheingold, Mike Love and Andrea Saveri for reaching out. I look forward to learning and sharing.