Already posted earlier this morning.
“Trashcanistans”
I like this made up name, there’s a few in Congress where it applies such as Tlaib, Omar...
An amazing alliance. Of course Jew hate comes oozing out all over the place simply because they are Jews. In spite of the World hating Jews and the constant efforts to harass and procecute them they still keep coming out on top. Whatever it is that pushes them towards success the World could use more of that. I prefer the winners
Excellent analysis - the parallel with an insurgency (though top down - literally - vs bottom-up) is brilliant. And it also makes sense of the lack of coherence re goals. Basically, ‘cripple ‘em and then leave them to their own devices’. Btw, it’s an okay strategy, but must be done (and perhaps periodically redone) sufficiently, in order to work - or that which reconstitutes will be even stronger.
Money quote (aka buried lede):
“The standoff campaign has been extraordinarily effective at destroying Iranian military capacity, but military capacity is not the same thing as governing authority. The Iranian state apparatus — its ministries, its courts, its bureaucracies, its revolutionary legitimating ideology — has not been destroyed. It has been decapitated and embarrassed, but decapitation and embarrassment are not the same thing as elimination. History is replete with examples of states that survived devastating military campaigns by retreating to the resilience of their civil institutions and the obstinacy of their populations”
IOW, if you shoot at the king, best not miss. And if you don’t kill your enemy, in the end, you make him stronger.