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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Kindergarten lesson is unlikely to work for Iran, Israel in the long run |
| 2020-01-10 |
| [JPost] - The United States learned the "kindergarten lesson" this week, something Israel has sharpened and perfected over the years in the way it formulates policy. It goes something like this: if Hamas fires a rocket but it doesn’t hurt anyone then there is no reason to retaliate aggressively. What’s the "kindergarten lesson?" Since everyone knows that if a rocket were to hit a kindergarten in Sderot, Kfar Aza or somewhere else along the southern border and cause extensive casualties, Israel would have no choice but to launch a large-scale military offensive. As long as that doesn’t happen though, Israel doesn’t have to. The problem is that this is no way to formulate policy. If rocket fire is a threat, then it needs to be dealt with whether the rockets hit and hurt someone or don’t. A government shouldn’t wait for people to be killed before dealing with a threat. That is not a strategy. A variation of this played out on Wednesday morning, when Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at bases that house US soldiers in Iraq. While satellite footage showed damage at the al-Assad airbase, no US military personnel were injured or killed. Donald Trump made a point of stressing this in his speech at the White House the following afternoon, explaining why he was holding his fire, for now. What that means though, is that if a barracks had been hit, and a number of soldiers had been killed, the response would have had to be different. Is this a way to formulate strategy? Probably not. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #3 Sometimes letting the opponent save face and back down is a better option than continued escalation. Only time will tell if this was one of those times. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2020-01-10 14:56 |
| #2 Iran is being dealt with thru diplomatic and economic measures as well as cyber activity and espionage. If results can be achieved that way, why not? |
| Posted by: lord garth 2020-01-10 10:54 |
| #1 Is this a way to formulate strategy? Old as the bible - an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, a brother for a brother. (adding the NYC descriptive "in spades") |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2020-01-10 08:32 |