re: "Obama Continues to Ignore Iran's Arming and Training of Shiite Militias as American Soldiers Die"

Confederate Yankee ("Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state.") defines an enemy.

Money quote(s):

"American soldiers in Iraq are being attacked and killed with increasing sophisticated weapons provided by Iran"

That statement has been true since at least 2004.

"Training is being provided by the Revolutionary Guards, which supports Shia terrorism worldwide.

A stern response in the form of a series of "accidents" at Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases or among IRG commanders might get Iranian attention, and if carefully targeted, could decapitate the leadership authorizing the attacks without overt war. It would be fighting Iran on its own terms, in the kind of guerilla warfare fighting Americans have excelled at since Major Benjamin Church led the first American ranger units in King Philips War a hundred years before we were an inkling of a nation.

We know how to defeat Iran at their own game. We simply need the political will to engage in this kind of conflict and win.

Of course, there doesn't seem to be the political will to counter Iran"

A truly lovely idea.

re: "Iran, Hamas, and deterrence"

TigerHawk ("thoughts of the day on international affairs, politics, things that strike us as hilarious and personal observations") is drawing some conclusions about fighting Hamas in Gaza.

Money quote(s):

"Not only is our enemy Iran actively waging proxy war against Israel, but its Shiite radicals are, apparently, more than willing to do it through Sunni stooges. So much for that sectarian divide, which is supposed to preclude Iranian coooperation with Sunnis in armed struggle (see "myth" #7 in this Juan Cole post). Israel is our front line against those bastards, and anybody who thinks that they will suddenly go all peaceful once they have driven Israel into the sea is smoking something stronger than weed."

&

"This gets to the heart of Israel's geopolitical rationale, and its metric for "victory" in this context: Hamas was obviously not deterred before -- otherwise, it would have expected this overwhelming response to its rocket attacks. Hamas launched those rockets because it did not believe Israel's implicit or explicit threat to retaliate. Israel's objective is to reestablish that belief. Israel will have "won," therefore, not when it wipes out Hamas for all time (which probably is not possible), but when Hamas finally does expect massive retaliation for its aggression."