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When You’re Afraid of Escalating and the Enemy Isn’t
Front Page Magazine ^ | 30 Jan, 2024 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 01/30/2024 4:55:50 AM PST by MtnClimber

“We do not seek another war. We do not seek to escalate. But we will absolutely do what is required to protect ourselves to continue that mission and to respond appropriately to these attacks…We will respond. We’ll do that on our schedule,” White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby stated.

Iran isn’t afraid of escalating. Its leaders and spokesmen don’t constantly express their fear of escalation. Instead, they escalate.

Their Jihadists seize control of shipping in the Red Sea. They invade Israel and kill over a thousand people. They hit a U.S. base inside Jordan.

The obsessions with “escalation” or “proportionate responses” are foolish. A military action is a tool. The question is what is the goal that this tool is accomplishing?

I can’t think of anything proportionate responses by a stronger nation reacting to aggression accomplish. In some conditions, such a response may maintain a balance of terror, but against an enemy who is constantly escalating, they clearly don’t work.

At best (and this is debatable) they may serve as some sort of brake slowing down the level of enemy escalation. But that’s also senseless.

When faced with escalating attacks, you can choose to withdraw from the arena of action (if possible, and this is also debatable) or if you have the capability, you either defeat the enemy or escalate beyond their ability to respond.

The Biden administration is once again choosing to do none of these things. Instead, it’s going to put on a show of responding in what it considers to be a proportionate way that is in theory meant to dissuade Iran from further attacks, but that clearly is not working.

And will never work.

When the enemy is afraid of escalating and you aren’t, the enemy has a problem. When you’re afraid of escalating and the enemy isn’t, you have a problem.

The goal of a balance of terror is to move from the latter to the former. Instead, Biden has moved us from the former to the latter.


TOPICS: Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: danielgreenfield; greenfield; iran; leftism; sultanknish
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To: FarCenter
Since then, Israel has killed about 24,000 Gazans, or a 20 to 1 ratio.

And your source for that figure is?

The only source I have seen for Hamas/Gaza casualties is Hamas. They are not a credible source.

21 posted on 01/30/2024 5:46:16 AM PST by marktwain (quq)
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To: mewzilla

If your quotation is referring to Jarrett, you are probably right.

Fools and the ambitious make great tools for the traitor, however. And it may be that there is no focused foreign power involved, as in Cicero’s time, but rather an ideology, even an internal one.


22 posted on 01/30/2024 5:55:22 AM PST by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: marktwain

Many references and summaries given here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war

As of 22 January, over 26,000 people (25,105 Palestinian and 1,410 Israeli[8]) have been killed in the Israel–Hamas war, including 83 journalists (76 Palestinian, 4 Israeli and 3 Lebanese) and over 136 UNRWA aid workers.[9][10]


23 posted on 01/30/2024 5:57:08 AM PST by FarCenter
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To: FarCenter
How is it working out for them in terms of their overall political and economic position?
~~~~

Israel is at war, even when they are not fighting.

The day that Israel becomes weaker than it's neighbors is the day that this map turns one color.
24 posted on 01/30/2024 6:05:33 AM PST by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: 100American; 21twelve; 2nd amendment mama; A Conservative Thinker; Absolutely Nobama; ...
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam and leftism.

The goal of a balance of terror is to move from the latter to the former. Instead, Biden has moved us from the former to the latter.

What could have changed a few years ago, that would allow Iran to change its provocations? Hmmm ...

Ping out to the Daniel Greenfield Ping! List.

As always, please FReepmail me if you want on or off the esteemed Daniel Greenfield ping list.

Daniel Greenfield's website: The Sultan Knish blog

25 posted on 01/30/2024 6:16:50 AM PST by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: MtnClimber

The fear of escalation can be likened to a huge paper hornet nest hanging outside your entry door. You know from the outset that hornets don’t give a wit if they die in battle and if their nest is disturbed and the alarm is sounded they will all mount out in a coordinated attack. Visualize the hornets and the nest as Allah’s minions and yourself wanting to peacefully use your property but knowing that you have lost control of your life and property if you allow that nest of hornets to remain outside your door. It’s obvious that the nest has to be destroyed but building up the courage to do so is another matter. That’s where the non-Islamic world is with respect to Islam. The hornets have to be eliminated but you are not sure if you are ready yet to bang on that hornet nest. However, you know full well that sooner or later the nest must be destroyed. That’s because the world of Islam is not compatible with the civilized world we live in.


26 posted on 01/30/2024 6:51:30 AM PST by iontheball
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To: FarCenter

Sorry. Wikipedia is not a credible source for political or current events. You can even scroll down to the bottom of your linked paged and see the sources used for it. Mostly Al Jazeera and other left-wing news sources.


27 posted on 01/30/2024 6:55:11 AM PST by rxh4n1
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To: FarCenter

<< 25,105 Palestinian (deaths) >>

Source: Hamas. Not exactly a reliable one.


28 posted on 01/30/2024 7:13:37 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
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To: Stingray51
He might want to add to his analysis something about costs and benefits. And he might want to take into account that the USA is not omnipotent, that there are real limits to American power. Absent a ground invasion and occupation of Iran and absent nuclear strikes, they can absorb any air campaign we mount against them, and will probably be happy to do so.

Excellent.

And maybe add on that Eagle Pass TX is ten thousand times more important than Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan all put together.

29 posted on 01/30/2024 7:24:03 AM PST by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et de phrases)
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To: z3n
Not our problem. We didn't decide that the Jews should emigrate from Europe to Palestine.

After centuries of persecution in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, the Jews decide to go there?

If anything, they're the responsibility of the UK (Balfour declaration and Palestine mandate), Germany (Holocaust perpetrators) and Russia (19th Century pogroms and source of recent immigrants).

30 posted on 01/30/2024 7:50:28 AM PST by FarCenter
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To: Jim Noble

Amen, I absolutely should have mentioned that, which is the far larger point. The entire concept of forward defense (what the great strategic thinker GW Bush called ‘fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here’…) is light years beyond ludicrous when our Southern border is wide open to millions of invaders.


31 posted on 01/30/2024 7:54:33 AM PST by Stingray51 ( )
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To: MtnClimber

Obama will try to buy them off, which of course will work for say, a week or so.


32 posted on 01/30/2024 7:56:32 AM PST by OKSooner ("You won't like what comes after America." - Leonard Cohen.)
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To: FarCenter

It’s not our problem, but it’s not not our problem.
No one is advocating for active US intervention in Gaza.

The article isn’t specifically only about the killing of our soldiers, but it’s still conflating Israel and Gaza (not the US) with being willing to have a proportional response to an attack on our people in Iraq.


33 posted on 01/30/2024 7:58:20 AM PST by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: MtnClimber

Same words LBJ SAID IN 1964 regarding Vietnam as he was bombing the north.


34 posted on 01/30/2024 8:15:55 AM PST by DownInFlames (p)
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To: MtnClimber

Baby milk factories everywhere should be on high alert.


35 posted on 01/30/2024 8:20:06 AM PST by Scott from the Left Coast (“We should not assume civilization is robust”)
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To: MtnClimber

.


36 posted on 01/30/2024 8:32:59 AM PST by sauropod (The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly.)
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To: Stingray51

OK, General.


37 posted on 01/30/2024 8:36:40 AM PST by metesky ("Leave us go amongst them." - Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton- Ward Bond, The Searchers)
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To: metesky

I am available for the job! (But not expecting the call…)


38 posted on 01/30/2024 9:08:30 AM PST by Stingray51 ( )
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To: MtnClimber

Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles and 10s of thousands drones.

They’ll set them loose at every oil facility in range.

It makes for a complicated cost/benefit analysis.


39 posted on 01/30/2024 9:42:03 AM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: silverleaf

👍


40 posted on 01/30/2024 9:43:36 AM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (The Truth is like a lion. You don't need to defend it. Let it loose and it will defend itself.)
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