Two recent “Intelligence Briefs” from PINR caught my eye: “Iran’s Covert Operations in Iraq,” and “The Implications of Strategic Withdrawal from Iraq.” As some readers know, I’m a big fan of PINR for supplying ‘open source intelligence,’ which is to say, generalized insights into foreign policy and educated guesses based on publicly available information. In… Continue reading The effects of withdrawal and Iranian covert operations
Tag: Iraq
Reading Tehran
This CSM piece gives an excellent background on the British-Iranian conflict that lead to the capture of British soldiers last week. The big mystery is why Iran would give the UK/US a clear casus belli like this, when we’re so clearly itching for a fight. It’s not like they couldn’t guess what sort of reaction… Continue reading Reading Tehran
Three faces of courage
Recently, a woman asked whether being told to “grow a pair” was evidence of misogyny, since it assumes that the only way to be courageous is to be masculine. I responded with some nonsense about the Laches and ᾳνδρειᾳ, stubborn manliness, which is the Greek word for courage. Still, it’s an interesting question: in the… Continue reading Three faces of courage
For A Few Dollars More…
The New York Times has a report on the proposed law regulating oil contracts. There’s no mention of production-sharing agreements there, but there is something a little fishy about the law, which centralizes the approval procedure for contracts for the oil under regional control. Here’s the relevant text from the NYT: [The law allows] regions… Continue reading For A Few Dollars More…
A day late and a dollar short… (Iraqi currency cliches continue)
Steve at Cows and Graveyards correctly connects the upcoming oil extraction agreements in Iraq to peak oil. Yes, Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, and as the global demand (mostly due to 40% increase in yearly consumption caused by the burgeoning Chinese economy) outstrips supply, prices will skyrocket unless the US… Continue reading A day late and a dollar short… (Iraqi currency cliches continue)