I've been writing/reporting on Qatar and Qatari foreign policy since 2011 or so. A major theme runs through all of my work on the topic: For the past 25 years, the country's leadership has had a practically unlimited and in fact globe-spanning sense of the national interest. This is a very small country of about 300,000 citizens that convinced itself that disparate, unrelated actors, such as the dictator of Eritrea, Malcolm Hoenlein, the Taliban, and the Washington Wizards were critical to its national strategy, which had no apparent limits... The Qataris constantly behaved as if there were no risks to the strategy—and their confidence was warranted. There is an inherent tension, even an inocherency, to a Gulf monarchy serving as the global clearing house for Muslim Brotherhood propaganda. Doha made it work though. At every turn, the inherent tensions of their project wound up working in their favor

I do not know that Israel's course in Syria is especially wise. It all seems very reckless. But here's the thing: Druze fall in battle at higher proportional rates than their Jewish comrades in the IDF. Druze have died defending synagogues and even the Temple Mount from terrorists. Israelis all know this... There is no fellow-feeling of any kind between Israeli Jews and Sunni religious militants, but that is not the case with the Druze. From the Israeli perspective the Syrian state might look more fake and more threatening and more temporary than the Druze within and beyond Israel's own borders

With the caveat that I'm not a physicist...a uranium-based nuclear weapon triggers a self-sutaning chain-reaction—nuclear criticality—by slamming two metal hemispheres of high-enriched uranium towards each other. This very different than a conventional bomb that also spreads radioactive material

https://x.com/OldePirat/status/1935120666166181899

However, as Albright noted to me, even 20% enriched uranium has gone through most of the centrifuge cycles needed to reach weapons-grade. The biggest challenge is getting between 0% and 5%. 60% to 90% requires far fewer spins of the centrifuge, and thus potentially fewer centrifuges...

On Tuesday afternoon, at around 4:30 PM, I was heading back to my hotel room after an action-packed day at MEF's annual policy conference in DC, partly because I was tired but mostly because I wanted to catch one of the final episodes of Around the Horn... As I sped towards the elevators I caught a glimpse of the conference nametag of someone sitting at a table totally alone. He looked so young that my brain processed him as maybe being a freshly-minted PhD or maybe even a college student. But the tag said Embassy of Israel so I backtracked and struck up a conversation.

As I've tweeted before, there are aspects of this proposed ceasefire agreement that are very bad for Israel and the US. Seems like Trump wants a spectacular quick win on the hostage issue before inauguration day, regardless of the long-term cost to US interests. Not ideal. But: Israel's great underrated achievement of the war has been its ability to maintain a diverse range of high-tempo operations against its enemies for well over a year, without much diplomatic, economic, or even social cost...

A few quick thoughts on possible US recognition of Somaliland as a fully independent sovereign state:

https://x.com/AcrossTheBay/status/1866870671743259040

-It upends 30 years of US policy that Somalia is a single, unitary country. Whether this policy has worked or not, no president of either party has ever backed off the position that it is one country, with paramount national authority in Mogadishu

Interesting that the issue of ICC sanctions has become partisanized. Senior officials in the US military and the Biden administration have intimately involved in planning Israel's campaign against Iranian proxies, and Isreal has generally operated w/i limits we've set for them... ie there would, as a practical matter, be a certain degree of *American* exposure if Netanyahu or Gallant were ever arrested and tried. And the people most exposed would be the ones currently inp ower—Lloyd Austin, Jake Sullivan, Biden himself probably

I believe my story from last year is still the only real in-depth profile of Bessant, whose background is, uh, atypical of the rest of the MAGA high council

https://x.com/MZHemingway/status/1722334782309138848

On the one hand, Bessant is Soros's former protege, and his right-wing publishing house—which he owned in secret, until I came along—sued one of its star writers and has a still-obscure link to the Trump documents case. But:

Some interesting stuff in here. For instance, it's apparently possible to become a leading voice on Israel without ever having gone there in adulthood newyorker.com/magazine/2024/… The sense you get from the article is that Angel is making an earnest go at holding together a great many tensions within herself and her movement. But maybe it can't be done, and maybe there's nothing inherently noble in trying

https://x.com/ya3ili/status/1833516166918311962

Almost everyone in Sinwar's inner circle is either dead or unaccounted for; the IDF is currently moving into the part of Khan Younis where he may be hiding out... jpost.com/israel-hamas-w… This might explain why the Israelis don't seem like they're in a huge hurry for a hostage deal. They'll have a bit more leverage in any agreement if Sinwar is dead. It would also be stupid to stop the war, withdraw troops etc if they think they're close to getting him

I've been to a good number of refugee and IDF camps over the course of my career. The first one I can remember visiting is a place called Yida, in the northern desert wilderness of South Sudan, back in 2012. Yida was considered a "militarized camp"... because of the alleged presence of separatist militants from the Nuba Mountains, who supposedly used the camp as a a safe-haven. I didn't see anything like that during the day and a half I spent there, but as a result of this perception most int'l NGOs and the UN had pulled out

Periodic reminder: The Ahly hospital strike, the Shifa rapes, the aid massacre, mass graves, famine, the Gaza death toll, the casualty list, the claim Israel destroyed half the buildings in Gaza...every single of these lies fell apart under examination.Hamas has no credibility... ...but despite—because of?—10/7 they have an advantage few other armed groups in history have ever enjoyed, which is that every one of their claims, no matter how outrageous or easily disproven, will be believed by many of the most powerful people, media outlets etc on earth

It's Yom Hazikaron today. As I try to mention every year, Jews around the world owe Israel's war dead an unpayable debt for defending our existence and salvaging our self-respect after the worst event in our history—and doing it despite much of the the world's scorn... This year it doens't feel nearly as abstract as all that. The stakes are more obvious, the scorn more intense than ever—and I also think it's pretty likely many of you have a connection to someone who has died defending Israel or the Jewish people over the past year

What if a thing that's never happened before, happened. Really makes you think doesn't it

https://twitter.com/shadihamid/status/1783534422404321373

What if pro-Israel protesters shut down the Holland Tunnel. Can you imagine? What if they shot up a bus of Madrassa students on the Brooklyn Bridge. What if they repeatedly attempted to blow up the World Trade Center...

Hate to say it, but the attacks last night were clearly a net gain for Iran timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry… They have somehow gotten the US to create and then actively enforce a principle whereby a state-declared direct bombadment of hundreds of missiles and drones doesn't reach the thresshold for retaliation,even when it's an American adversary attacking a close ally.More importantly,

Here's the thing,a notable percentage of the worst accusations again Israel since 10/7 have ended up being disproven or recanted: The Ahly hospital massacre, the alleged % of buildings destroyed in Gaza, the rapes and infanticides at Shifa, the Hamas-provided casualty numbers etc Meanwhile Israeli claims that were once widely rejected have tended to pan out. Various foreign governments eventually agreed Hamas had penetrated UNWRA. Hamas really does use hospitals as their operational HQs. 10/7 victims and hostages really were sexually abused...

Important from @Scrollletter: The claim Israel massacred aid recipients in Gaza is a lie that Hamas is strategically deploying in order to save itself In the long run the lie won't stick, but it doesn't need to. It's been pretty successful so far

https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1763302408854130735

Really worth reading from Elliott Abrams, hismelf an ex-peace processer of some note. When people talk about a "Palestinian state," what do they mean? What would it look like? Would it be democratic? Would it rly be demilitarized? Who would its allies be? tabletmag.com/sections/israe… For instance...to me it is obvious that the 17-year geopolitical experiment of Palestinian control over the Philadelphia corridor has been a failure. Palestinian control of that border is clearly a threat to global security, cuz here we are. So:

Burns did his job well. Israel's negotiating position has considerably softened over the past week. They're now contemplating something close to a US-managed battlefield defeat timesofisrael.com/potential-deal… The Israelis are now at a real crossroads. They can refuse to lose a war to Hamas, thus infuriating Washington. Or they can captiulate to Burns etc, thus risking a severe internal crisis...

A couple quick notes on that Ilhan video:

1) As I mentioned in yesterday's @Scrollletter, the fact Ilhan often makes major policy statements in a language very few Americans understand is pretty far outside the norm in US politics 2), also from @Scrollletter: Relatively few Twin Cities Somalis are Somalilanders. Refugees frm earlier S'land phase of the civil war went to Britain/Europe; those frm South went to the US, in part b/c some, like Ilhan's family, had some sort of a role in the regime...

One of about a dozen totally unsustainable aspects of the current situation in Israel

https://twitter.com/ElliotKaufman6/status/1737931128764346780

A small country cannot have a quarter-million internally displaced, plus another 350,000 mobilized, on an indefinite timeline. Same goes for getting attacked on mutliple fronts—with the result of a major port losing 85% of its traffic—without a major military response...