Center for a New American Security

This weekend, I went to the local coffeeshop to read two documents which I had previously skimmed but to which I wanted to devote more attention and felt deserved a closer reading. The first is the National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2025 report, a paper that has gotten a lot of attention in policy circles for its blunt conclusions regarding the future environment.

Building off of yesterday's post on Hizballah and Israel, I need to tell you that the UN in southern Lebanon is complaining the Israelis have placed "spy gear" in southern Lebanon that is now causing suspicious explosions. The only thing cooler than spy gear, I say, is exploding spy gear.

What, though, is "spy gear"? Can you imagine the UNIFIL investigation?

I have several friends in the Israeli journalism community whose reporting I trust and admire, but when it comes to Hizballah, I am often wary of what is written from south of the Blue Line unless it focuses almost exclusively on Israeli operations. Sometimes the author is a little too sure of the conclusions he or she draws about Hizballah, something Beirut-based journalists like Nick Blanford and Mitch Prothero who report on Hizballah from north of the Blue Line and enjoy good contacts within the organization rarely do.

Nick Noe -- with whom I often disagree but who carefully listens to Hassan Nasrallah -- has a response to my post from yesterday:

My schedule is packed with meetings today, so posting will be light, but this beat out Iranian rocket tests for the lead story in yesterday's Jerusalem Post:

During his research for the article, titled "How the Arabs are preparing for the next war," Sandman asked 24 senior IDF officers to grade the army and Hizbullah in 10 categories, on a scale of 1 to 10.

 

As you might imagine, I have spent a lot of time in the bars and cafes of Beirut talking with journalists, analysts and other friends about Hizballah and its strategy. It's a new experience doing the same thing here south of the Blue Line. The other day, though, just before Yom Kippur, I sat down with a Jerusalem-based analyst, and though we had some (polite) disagreements about the motivations of Hizballah and its relationship with Iran, we both agreed on one thing: that Hizballah's strategy toward Israel since the latter's 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon has been incoherent.

Hahahaha, Lt. Col. W. Thomas Smith, Jr... This guy never fails to amuse me. He's still cranky some journalists in Beirut outed him as a fabulist, ending his gig with the National Review:

My hosts here in Beirut have written and photographed the best English-language account thus far of Salah Ezzedine, the man being described as the Lebanese Bernie Madoff.

Okay, this is just delicious. Last winter, as you all know, the Bernard Madoff scandal hit Jewish charities particularly hard, including many which give to Israel.

Okay, here you go. Greatest. Source on Hizballah. Ever. The rest of my dissertation should be quite easy to complete now. (Thanks, Mitch.)