Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Go Senator Whitehouse!

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Everybody saw this coming.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / The Levantine Problem Set: Some Light(ish) Reading

The Levantine Problem Set: Some Light(ish) Reading

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Bill Arnold in the comments to BettyC’s earlier post asked for some short reading about Iran. While they’re no longer posted on an outward facing website at USAWC, I’m attaching the three cultural assessments I did on 1) the Syrian Civil War, 2) Iran and Hezbullah, and 3) Iraqi sectarian violence. These were all done between spring 2013 and spring 2014. They are unclassified open source cultural assessments prepared by my office, when I had an office, at USAWC in support of various US Army and DOD elements that were dealing with these issues. They’re a bit dated now, for instance, Ahmedinijad is no longer Iran’s president, but they should provide what Bill is looking for.

USAWC_Culture_Ops_Syria_Brief_Final

USAWC_Culture_Report_Iran_Hezbullah_Shia_Near_Abroad_Final

USAWC_Cultural_Operations_Report_Politicization_of_Iraqi_Identity_Final

You can also find my article about the strategic complications of Iran’s human geography at this link. This was published by The Modern War Institute at West Point in August 2018 and is rooted in earlier work I had done for US Army and DOD elements.

Update at 9:05 PM EST

Figured I’d add one more. This is the preliminary write up – just the facts ma’am style – of the tribal history and social study I designed, directed, oversaw, and conducted in central Iraq in 2008. This initial write up was produced at the request of the senior State Department official who ran our brigade combat team’s embedded provincial reconstruction team. I gave him a courtesy briefing of what we’d been finding and he asked if I could write it up ASAP as he wanted to send it back to the Secretary of State as soon as possible. I have no idea if it ever got to Secretary Rice. Regardless, here you go.

HTT_Mada’in_Oral_History_Findings_BCT_Release

There will be a test later…

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

40Comments

  2. 2.

    Adam L Silverman

    I have no idea why there is all that extra space between “There will be a test later… and Open thread!”. And nothing I seem to try to get rid of it gets rid of it.

  7. 7.

    Aleta

    Other reading:  The International Institute for Strategic Studies published Iran’s Networks of Influence in the Middle East (in Nov. 2019 I believe).  They’ve made the Intro and Chapters 1 and 4 free to read.

    This 18-month long study, based on field work, interviews and open source analysis examines how Iran projects its influence in the Middle East through a variety of complex relationships with regional partners.

    Introduction

    Chapter One: Tehran’s strategic intent

    Chapter Four: Iraq

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    interesting if followed through…

    The Hill‏Verified account @thehill 4h4 hours ago

    JUST IN: Romney says he wants to hear Bolton testimony in Trump impeachment trial 

  18. 18.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Adam L Silverman: And Mitt doesn’t need to worry about anything – Sens Collins and Murkowski are both now on board to punt the questions regarding witnesses to a future date (and with a quick, close vote to move on without them).

    No matter that the precedent they cite was a situation where all witnesses had already testified under oath prior to the articles of impeachment. Clinton’s administration lawfully complied with the previous Impeachment inquiry. T’s  administration has stonewalled and persistently obstructed justice. We haven’t heard from these witnesses yet.

    But I guess that’s “moderate” Republicans for you.

  21. 21.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: “I can post fluffy assessments of the Middle East if that helps?”

    With all due respect, there are plenty of places where we can get fluffy assessments of all sorts of things.

  26. 26.

    FlyingToaster

    @The Pale Scot: I’m a patr(e)on of Aaron’s (Aaron Reynolds, creator of @SwearTrek, @EffinBirds, @BatLabels), so I have most of his relevant posts to hand.

  27. 27.

    Duane

    @jl:  Later, Cheryl will post about nuclear weapons and we can discuss fluffy bunnies, your worst test ever, and John Cole’s washing machine purchase.

  28. 28.

    Dan B

    @TaMara (HFG):   To (mangle)quote a general, or summuddy like that, “An army runs in its stomach.”

    And on my partner’s family’s charter boat the cook gets paid the same as the skipper.  (It’s the Schooner Zodiac, based out of Bellingham, in case you ever wanna get some island or Inside Passage scenery.)

  29. 29.

    Librarian

    I would like to add that maybe one also should read some general histories of Iran, such as Nikki Keddie’s Modern Iran and the books of Ervand Abrahamian.

  33. 33.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    And Mitt doesn’t need to worry about anything – Sens Collins and Murkowski are both now on board to punt the questions regarding witnesses to a future date (and with a quick, close vote to move on without them).

    What does Murkowski owe to McConnell or Trump? She ran and won as a write-in candidate in 2010 thanks to Native American support because she IIRC paid attention to their issues and the alternative was a Tea Party goon. She’s proven she can win without official GOP support, so why does she do this shit? She could be far more powerful than she actually is. And does she think she’ll still have a job in 2022 after this farce?

    And speaking of Susie Q Collins, her polling isn’t looking so good:

    Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-Maine) approval rating is deeply underwater about a year ahead of her reelection race, according to a new poll from the left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling.

    Thirty-five percent of Maine voters polled approve of the job Collins is doing, while 50 percent disapprove. Collins trails a generic Democratic candidate 44 percent to 41 percent in the 2020 Maine Senate race, a drop from September, when she led a generic Democrat 44 percent to 38 percent.

    It’s early, I know, but that’s not good for Collins. Any Mainers who want to weigh in on Collins’ chances of losing?

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Librarian: I have read them.

    In this case Bill Arnold was asking for something short and on topic because he was finding very large, very thick books that aren’t necessarily written to be easily digested.

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