Feel like there is too much going on in the national security world to keep up with?
Well, let your heart not be troubled. Mark & Sal will deliver a full hour of discussion of not just what's breaking in to the news in the last week of January 2024, but whatever else pops up.
Iranian proxies causing American military losses from Jordan to the Horn of Africa; Iranian drone carriers to America's need for some inventive ideas to bring more VLS cells forward sooner - with some ASBM pondering thrown in for good measure.
You can catch is here or at the below.
Sal, listening the MidRats podcast recording, and a couple of points I think are worth adding to the conversation.
The Biden admin national security policy is driven by Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor. Blinken is 2nd fiddle (though for what it's worth, Blinken and Sullivan are co-equally incompetent)
Sullivan is THE AUTHOR of the JCPA, otherwise known as the Iran Deal. He is the absolute definition of the elite liberal incapable of viewing their adversaries through their adversaries frame of reference.
Sullivan is NOT trying to prevent Iran from getting Nukes. From the start, the JCPA was designed, when reading for comprehension, to ENSURE Iran eventually DOES get nukes.
Sullivan's mindset is that a nuclear Iran would serve as a balance to Israel and create balance and hence peace.
Because he is singularly incapable of believing that Iran would pre-emptively USE a nuclear weapon. He sees world leaders as using comparable logic to his own, ie.., rational. He does not take religious extremism from leaders as serious threat because he cannot imagine a rational national leader actually believing those things.
So, you are right, Sullivan and Blinken are extremely unlikely to allow the administration to respond in any way that is actually meaningful deterrent or actually destroy Houthi capability.
ugghhh AI images.