Executive director, @JQASociety. Coauthor of a book assessing war with Iran. Cohost of @securitydpod. Non praevalebunt. (Personal acct.)
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Jun 22 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
Just spent some time watching Iranian state TV. Some takeaways:
🧵
Lots of talk about the activities of President Pezeshkian (mainly discussions with regional leaders) and Foreign Minister Araghchi. Did not see anything about the real security power centers - the Leader and the IRGC. I assume they are deliberating on what to do.
Jun 17 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
🧵Joining a war puts the camel's nose in the tent. Goals get bigger. Doing one thing creates a desire to support that thing by doing another, or yields losses that you wish to avenge. We should not understate the danger that "just a few bombs in this one place at this one time" will turn into something bigger.
Even ground troops could happen this way. Sustained conflict, especially over Hormuz, will encourage us to look for ways to escalate to force Iran to back down. Seizing valuable areas as tokens to be traded back would be one way.
Apr 14, 2024 • 26 tweets • 8 min read
Israel has signaled it will respond to Iran's retaliatory strike.
One option they're likely considering: hitting Iran's nuclear program. I coauthored a book in 2013 that studied what a war with Iran would be like, and we dug into this option quite a bit. Here's what to know: 🧵
Iran's nuclear program has several core sites that would be essential to the production of a nuclear weapon. This is an old map but has the core sites: Natanz, Fordow, Arak, and Esfahan (rendered here as Ispahan) (image by Yagasi, CC-BY-SA 4.)
