Apparently the alternative to the Baker commission/TYR solution in Iraq – get the fuck out under a negotiated settlement with Iran – that the White House is floating is a “tilt to the Shia and Kurdish 80 per cent. I find it a little hard to work out how we are meant to tilt to…
Read More Pinball WizardNot at all sure what to make of this UN Expert Panel report on Somalia. Some things are clear enough, for example that Ethiopia is supporting the old not-government and Eritrea the Islamic Courts in order to piss off the Ethiopians. But what is all this James Bond stuff about Iranians trading arms for uranium?…
Read More The what and the whyRight, I’ve already given reasons why it’s urgently necessary to start staff talks with Iran about how we can get out of Iraq. Someone asked what incentive the Iranians had to participate. I suggested, essentially, that they would rather not have us shoot our way out with AC-130s down Highway 8. Well, here’s a better…
Read More Talking to Iran, part 3Yesterday, October 31st, at 1126 Central European Time, we had the following entry in the server log… 205.65.1.21 [entrypoint #424] 2006/10/carrierwatch-update_30.html Oct 31, 11:26:28 [0:00:00] views: 1 Proxy: noca-b1.uar.navy.mil – CVN65UCSDC2, 1.0webc2.uar.navy.mil:80 (squid/2.5.STABLE3) That is to say, someone aboard CVN-65, the USS Enterprise, read this post. You know who you are. You know where the…
Read More Best visit everJust to update on this post, now well on its way into the TYR Greatest Hits.. Current status of various US aircraft carriers is as follows: Dwight D. Eisenhower, CVN-69 sailed from Limassol, Cyprus on Saturday after calling in for a chilled Keo beer or twenty thousand. To arrive on station in the Gulf, she…
Read More Carrierwatch updateMaps are nice, aren’t they? So let’s have a look at a few maps of Iraq. This one shows Iraq’s administrative divisions, its roads and its rivers. Note especially that there are essentially two major roads between Baghdad and Basra. One runs along the Tigris valley parallel to the Iranian border. The other runs just…
Read More Talk to Iran. Now.If the Americans were going to attack Iran, you’d think they would do it when they had a ship or two available. Various people have been getting their knickers in a twist because the Dwight D. Eisenhower and her task group sailed for the Indian Ocean on the 3rd of October. (The Nation, this means…
Read More There will be no attack on Iran this yearRemind me not to go back to Dubai if at all possible. It’s what happens when you leave the keys where the postmodernists can get at them, a formless mass of rapid urbanisation running along the coast from the border with Sharjah to beyond the docks at Jebel Ali. “Sprawl” doesn’t describe it, because sprawl…
Read More Brainfuck CityApparently if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, A nuclear Iran is likely to give or lend nuclear weapons to terrorists, resulting in an undeterrable nuclear strike against an American city or cities. And the answer to this dread scenario? Why, a credible threat of force. Eh? Employing a credible threat of force is only useful…
Read More More DeterrenceJamie K thinks the UNTSO post was bombed to prevent them observing a possible Israeli flank movement from the northern tip of the country, around Kiryat Shmona, down the Litani valley to the sea, with hopes of cutting off the retreat, which means going further into Lebanon. He quotes me, in comments, suggesting that this…
Read More Right flank