J.E. Dyer

BAD FAITH

Our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

This isn’t news; it’s a polemic

Surveying how much has changed.

Hamas' purpose was to attack the unity of the de facto Middle East coalition – a coalition against radical Iran – forming through the Abraham Accords.  The premise of the attack was that framing the conflict as a response to an outrage against Al Aqsa, and forcing Israel to strike back hard, would peel away the Arab partners to the Abraham Accords.

Got your amendments right here, Mr. President

The impetus for a break-up depends mostly on how badly "RED" America wants to escape the repressive policy overreach of "BLUE" America.

The pretense of honoring the rule of law is already gone.  It was gone under Obama for years, but it has now emerged into the open as a change in the rules of engagement. 

In military planning terms, Soleimani was the operational center of gravity for Iran’s proxy campaign throughout the Middle East, from Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. That operational center of gravity just received a knockout blow.

Probably the most overlooked aspect of the “flags on the sidewalk” phenomenon in Iran is that, as the regime paints those flags everywhere, hoping Iranians will step on them, it is basically symbolizing its – the regime’s – effective “occupation” by its obsession with the Great Satan and the Little Satan.

Shadow battle with Iran continues

It has been clear for some time now that Iran has been eyeing the Golan as a gateway to military leverage over Israel. With U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan, the vector of geomilitary momentum will shift significantly.

In America, Ilhan Omar has the right to express anti-Semitic views, using, if she chooses, the same anti-Semitic themes as Nazi propagandists. Her constituents in Minnesota have the right to elect her to Congress. But that doesn’t mean any of them has a right to any committee assignments for Omar in the House of Representatives, much less choice ones like the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The U.S. leaving Syria won’t mean Syria descending into chaos. I can’t say I like what it does mean for Syria. But chaos is not in the offing.

the timing of the migrant caravan tells its own story. If we look at it as a move by Russia and Iran, in particular, it can be logically recognized as part of a campaign to attack U.S. interests on a broad front. The motive is to increase the pressure on the Trump administration across the board, partly but significantly because Trump is shifting his strategy in Syria toward going for Tehran’s solar plexus by kicking Iran out of it.

AMLO is all for tearing down borders – except that of course Mexico gets to have them, and rely on them to protect policies on economics and other issues. Mexico moreover gets to use the power of the nation-state to … well, not to put it too delicately, to extort the United States.

It probably doesn’t feel this way to the people trying to explain why Israel has to defend herself, but over the past week, since Hamas’ border fence “protests” from Gaza cranked up, there has been a distinctly tinny, perfunctory sound to the adverse media coverage and political shouting.

The source of the report claiming that Israeli F-35 strike-fighters flew into Iranian airspace during the past month was a sensationalist Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. So the claim seems most suspect.

As long as the mainstream media have rumors of geniuses and *********to combat, they may not be able to mount a concerted, thematic counter-effort against Trump’s actual policy moves.

A report is also circulating that a top member of the clerical council in Qom has expressed support for the popular protesters. That doesn’t mean anything specific is going to be conceded to the protesters. But it does mean, at the least, that at least some on the council see a need to appease the people

The pretext for Iran, as always (since 2014), is “defeating ISIS.” Iran has exploited this strategic pretext in order to gobble up the territory that will form her land bridge.

By conducting numerous tests of nuclear-capable missiles, Iran has been daring the UN and JCPOA parties to stop them. Now that Trump looks prepared to call Iran’s bluff, the mullahs are suddenly ready to negotiate the missile program.

NFL players who refuse to honor America’s symbols as a way of denouncing the police (or, apparently, white people) are wrongheaded. So are those who make excuses for them

Israel is in this as a fight for her existence, and will not be deterred or limited by the military arrangements of others. Put more bluntly, Russia’s interests in Syria, and effective control of Syrian airspace, will not hold a veto over Israel’s strategic latitude.

Kelly’s walking into something that will be a tougher challenge than homeland security. He’s a good choice, and we have reason to hope for good things to come of it.

Bottom line: Trump didn’t expose sensitive information about intelligence sources and methods. (Keep that in mind. Trump has not exposed anything.)

Iran, Assad, and Hezbollah tried to sneak in yet another high-value arms shipment via the Damascus Airport. Israel's destroying the shipment is a reminder of the IDF’s readiness to react immediately

It’s a new world we’re in today, the world of Big Data. The handling of Big Data has been oozing out beyond the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment for some time now. Trump was a victim of this

Surprisingly, Israel not only went public about the strike and missile intercept but followed up with an explicit vow to destroy Syria’s air defense systems if they are used against IAF aircraft again

The long and short of the "Trump/Russia-election" line of attack is that the Obama Democrats can’t run it without implicating every unsightly thing the Obama administration did to set it up.