December 10, 2024

ELI LAKE: Assad’s Fall Has Humiliated Washington.

As president, Donald Trump challenged the Obama doctrine. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. On the second day of 2020, Trump ordered the air strike that killed Qasem Suleimani, the Iranian general and architect of Iran’s strategy of building up regional proxies throughout the Middle East.

But after Biden won the 2020 election, the old Obama approach returned. One of the first priorities of Biden’s new administration was to restore the nuclear bargain that Trump tried to scuttle. And Iran’s proxies continued to become emboldened. No worries. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan boasted last year, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Oops—eight days after Sullivan made those remarks at the Atlantic Festival, Hamas launched its October 7 pogrom.

A year later, thanks to Israel’s robust response, Hamas and Hezbollah are hobbled. Their leadership is largely eliminated, and Assad’s regime has fallen. Obama’s wisdom, in retrospect, looks foolish. It turns out that Iran was not here to stay. It turns out that another regional power—Israel—was able to extinguish much of Iran’s vaunted ring of fire, despite the warnings, arm-twisting, and weapon-shipment delays from the Biden administration. The Saudis, the Syrian people, the Lebanese, and the Israelis had a choice all along. They did not have to “share” the region with a regime intent on dominating it.

So it’s also worth tallying the price of Obama’s strategic patience. The most conservative estimates say that more than 300,000 people perished in Syria’s civil war; others put that figure at closer to 600,000. This says nothing of the 14 million refugees forced to flee Syria after Iran and Russia saved the country’s brutal tyrant. Outside groups estimate that nearly 400,000 people have died as a result of the war in Yemen, a war started by Iran’s Houthi proxies. Lebanon today is nearly a failed state because Hezbollah was the most powerful militia in the country after Iran’s years of intervention. In the meantime, Israel suffered the horror of October 7 and Gazans suffered the war Hamas initiated.

How much of this bloodshed could have been spared if Obama hadn’t clung to the fantasy of a Saudi-Iranian cold peace?

It was my impression Obama was enabling Iranian dominance, not a cold peace. Either way, the results of Obama’s (and then Biden’s) largess toward Tehran were as chaotic as they were deadly.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

OLD AND BUSTED: Robocop.

The New Future of Law Enforcement: Robo-Ball! China unveils all-terrain SPHERICAL robocops to chase down, bludgeon, and catch criminals using net-launching cannons.

Chinese robotics company Logon Technology unveiled the RT-G autonomous spherical robot in a “technological breakthrough” the other month.

And despite people believing it was all a bizarre marketing stunt, RT-G bots have actually been spotted the streets of China alongside human cops.

Footage shows one of the beast balls rolling round a city, carefully patrolling for any potential crime that could occur.

The spheres are designed to assist — and eventually replace humans — in dangerous environments and situations involving crime.

The ball beast is able to operate both on land and in water, making it practically unstoppable.

It can also withstand a whopping four tonnes of impact damage to prevent criminals from trying to cover their tracks and kill it.

Despite the RT-G only being able to reach a fairly slow speed of 22mph, it does weigh a back-breaking 125kg.

The RT-G can also be equipped with non-fatal police gear like net guns, tear gas sprayers, some grenades, loudspeakers and sound wave dispersal devices.

You guys all laughed at BB-8 In the Star Wars sequels. Now it’s payback time:

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

REUTERS IS “FACT CHECKING” AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Flashback to 2019: The Babylon Bee Satirizes the Absurdities of American Politics. Snopes Doesn’t Seem to Get the Joke.

In 2021, Laurene Powell Jobs’ and Jeffrey Goldberg’s equally far left Atlantic would strike the same pose at being equally clueless about the Bee’s satire:

[Emma] Green: You guys wrote an article in January 2020 that was shared roughly 3 million times, claimingthat Democrats called for the American flag to be flown at half-staff when the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was killed in an American strike.

What makes this funny? I know that’s the worst question to ask somebody who writes jokes.

[Kyle] Mann: It’s funny because General Soleimani died and then they called for flags to be flown at half-mast. Get it?

Green: But that’s what I’m saying. Besides just saying the joke again, what makes it funny?

Mann: Do you want me to explain the joke to you? Because the joke is that General Soleimani died and Democrats were sad.

If you don’t know why that’s funny, then you’re not the audience for the joke. The funniest part is that it got fact-checked because it was so believable that Democrats would do that. That’s a real honor.

As Steve spotted in 2019, a possible explanation from a Twitter user: “They’re intentionally pretending that these memes are meant to mislead the public so they can claim censorship is necessary to deal with misinformation on social media.”

With the second Trump term seemingly already having started, the legacy media wants very much to resume pretending to be the Central Scrutinizer once again.

Posted at 10:22 am by Ed Driscoll

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: 2024: A Damn Close-Run Thing.

As always, if you like these please take out a paid subscription.

Posted at 10:09 am by Glenn Reynolds

JUST WAIT UNTIL TRUMP RESTORES SANCTIONS: Iran in a ‘position of unprecedented weakness’ after the fall of Assad in Syria.

Syria was Iran’s corridor for delivering logistical and armed support to the Lebanese group Hezbollah and to Hamas in Gaza, which helped ensure the security of Axis of Resistance powers while allowing Iran to exercise its influence – and deterrent capabilities – far from its own borders. “Syria represented a springboard for the Iranian regime to project its influence as far as the Mediterranean, and that has disappeared,” notes Jonathan Piron, a historian and Iran specialist at the Etopia research centre in Brussels.

“The Axis of Resistance as we knew it no longer exists,” he says. “With the Israeli operation in Lebanon, Hezbollah is no more. Its capacity for action has been significantly diminished, in any case. Now, Assad’s Syria no longer exists, either. The main pillars of the Axis of Resistance have disappeared. What is left? The Houthis [in Yemen], but they have their own agenda and are far from Tehran. And the Iraqi militias, which have refused to intervene in recent days on Syrian soil to come to the aid of Bashar al-Assad.”

The destruction of the Axis of Resistance is a direct consequence of the Hamas-led attacks of October 7 and Israel’s subsequent offensive, says David Rigoulet-Roze, associate research fellow and Middle East expert at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs.

Reminder: Iran’s defeat was made possible by Bibi Netanyahu ignoring Biden’s “Don’t!” instructions.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Are We Ready for Some BLM ‘Winter of Love’ Mostly Peaceful Stuff? “The pathetic BLM posers might want to read the room now. The idiot Obama-era politicians who propped them up all the way through the 2020 rioting have been pushed to the side. We’re not going to be seeing kneeling photo-ops from the Capitol when the Trump 47 crew rolls back into the Beltway in January.”

Posted at 9:06 am by Stephen Green

BILL WHITTLE’S HOT MIC: We need a HERO: Pete Hegseth vs. The Deep State. “The problem isn’t inside the Pentagon. The problem IS the Pentagon. Responsible for spending $825,000,000,000 this year alone, the political and economic pressures to simply continue with the status quo are so monumental that standing up to them is nothing less than HEROIC. Turns out we have just the man for the job.”

Watch the whole thing.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

WIN BY LOSING: Trump can fire anybody he wants, thanks to Sean Spicer. “Thanks in part to a court fight former Trump White House spokesman Sean Spicer lost over his firing by Biden from a three-year term to the Board of Visitors to the United States Naval Academy, the incoming president will have the legal backing to dump any of Biden’s over 4,000 appointments who try to stick around. . . . Spicer said that is exactly what he hoped the courts would do because he wanted to help a future Trump presidency fire Biden’s picks without having its hands tied.”

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Lefty Logic Lures Loonies. It’s meant to. Leftism is weaponized neurosis. “Reading all of these pieces I’m seeing a story that goes something like this: Depressed, neurotic people (especially single women) are more likely to support Democrats. Democrats support policies and messaging that produce more depressed, neurotic people, especially single women. Now maybe this is an accident, but maybe it isn’t.”

Posted at 8:27 am by Glenn Reynolds

RACISM, STRAIGHT UP: Black Harris staffers say they were mistreated on the campaign, blame leadership for taking base for granted.

Black Harris staffers are accusing the campaign leadership of mistreatment and “outright racial discrimination” in a damning new article outlining numerous allegations against the now defunct campaign.

The New York Times published a story Sunday titled “How Alarmed Harris Staffers Went Rogue to Reach Black and Latino Voters.” The story details a clandestine operation by some campaign staffers who ignored directives from the top and took matters into their own hands after feeling frustrated by the campaign’s lack of sufficient effort to reach voters of color in Philadelphia.

“Many staff members felt that Philadelphia’s racially diverse neighborhoods were ignored,” the Times story reads, adding that “Black campaign staff members and political operatives said campaign leadership dismissed concerns that Democrats were taking their base for granted.”

As the election drew closer, the frustration with campaign leadership on the issue reached a boiling point, according to more than 30 staffers interviewed by The Times.
…
“Some complained of outright racial discrimination. The campaign’s leadership was made aware of the survey’s results,” the article says.

So long as Democrats are blaming Harris, Biden, or each other, they aren’t doing anything to course-correct their party.

Which seems fine and fun to watch — until they do manage to put another radical in the White House.

Posted at 7:33 am by Stephen Green

IT’S COMING BACK, THANKS TO ELON AND THE DONALD: Virginia Postrel: The Lost Glamour of the Future.

Leftists were crushed by what Normal Mailer called the “Revenge of the Squares.” While they yammered about changing the world, the guys at NASA with the flattops and pocket protectors went and actually did it.

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

MSNBC HAS REVEALED A SINISTER NEW DIMENSION TO PROGRESSIVE MEDIA BIAS:

And then there is MSNBC’s Joy Reid. On Tuesday, the TV host criticised Trump for “spending his time sitting in his golden palace, Mar-a-Lago, muscling other countries like he’s Tony Soprano with a social media site”. But one of the examples she gave was highly revealing. She cited his demand that Hamas – memo to the MSNBC faithful, that’s not a country – “release all hostages being held in Gaza before his inauguration, or there will be, quote, ‘all hell to pay in the Middle East’”.

That damned Don Soprano, making demands on Hamas! Who does he think he is?

The host is so out of touch with reality, and any coherent moral compass, that she apparently thinks it is legitimate to attack Trump for threatening savages who kidnap, rape, and murder Jews  as punishment for being Jewish, and Americans for the crime of being American.

Unexpectedly – considering that we are talking about Al Sharpton’s cable TV network here, after all.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

HEH: An Open Letter to Everyone Who Will Have Their Rights Taken Away on Jan. 20, 2025. “According to the erudite leftist voices at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and all throughout social media, President-elect Literally Hitler But Also Plus Sometimes Stalin (long, I know, but I don’t make the rules) is going to quickly take away the rights of the LGBTQ++ Rainbow Coalition as soon as he’s sworn in on Inauguration Day.”

Posted at 7:02 am by Stephen Green