This week we're told there's a pause in the war to allow for a new round of negotiations. Coincidentally, that will also give time for the United States Marines transiting by sea from Japan to get on-station in theater. The apparent WARNO to the 82nd Airborne, the Army's most rapidly deployable force, also looks relevant to that "week of talks."
Is peace at hand? I wouldn't wager on it. I'm not sure who is left over there who has authority to negotiate a peace in any case.
UPDATE: Open sources indicate that the 'who' is the Speaker of the Parliament of Iran. In spite of the title, this isn't really a 'parliament' in the usual sense of the word: it's official title is "The Islamic Consultative Assembly." The "Consultative" part is what distinguishes it from a true parliament: "All legislation endorsed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly must be submitted to the Guardian Council. Within a maximum of ten days from its receipt, the Guardian Council must review the legislation to ensure its compatibility with Islamic criteria and the Constitution. If any incompatibility is identified, the legislation is returned to the Assembly for further review."
Israel is said to have approved their movement to Islamabad for talks. If we are aware of the flight and the photos from the open sources, you can be reasonably sure they'll be tracked home -- probably all the way home. It is generally wise to leave someone alive with the authority to surrender.
3 comments:
Gives the Iranians time too. Finding any accurate info these days is hard, but it seems like water may be a key issue- both the denial of it for transit and for drinking.
The irony is that it's a military tactic that has a strong root in Islamic tradition: it is called hudna.
https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/tactical-hudna-and-islamist-intolerance
This week we're told there's a pause in the war....
No pause in the war that I've heard about, just an HIA of moves to destroy Iran's energy production capacity. Israel is continuing to hunt Iran government officials, and the US is continuing to attack military targets.
It is generally wise to leave someone alive with the authority to surrender.
That's convenient only of the one(s) with authority to surrender can enforce it. On the other hand, there's nothing from stopping the several unit commanders, at any level in the hierarchy, from surrendering their units, or at least standing them down and returning them to barracks--doing so openly and believably enough that those barracks don't continue to be targets.
With terrorists, though, we're dealing with a networked entity, for all that the present one has a veneer of central government. We need to deal--we've always needed to deal--with each of those network nodes separately and individually, especially those network nodes that aggregate into the IRGC and the Basij. These are types whose members are happy to die for the cause, though; there'll be no surrender here.
Eric Hines
Eric Hines
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