Pragmatically Distributed

From December –

The Israeli-Saudi strategy has been to support the removal of Assad. In my opinion this is the wrong strategy. The fall of Assad would have left a power vacuum that Iran could have filled with other terrorist proxies. Leaving a gravely weakened Assad in power is better because Assad’s weakness will be easier to leverage into concessions favorable to the Israelis and Saudis.

One of the concessions Israel, with American backing, should demand is removal of Iranian forces from Syria. In exchange, Israel would agree to recognize Assad’s government. Assad is already desperate to calm tensions with Israel and he has recently proposed to create a 40 mile buffer zone between Israel and Iranian forces. The Israelis should demand further concessions while making narrow strategic attacks against Iranian forces stationed in Syria.

To diplomatically bolster the Israeli negotiating position further the United States should also insist on the removal of Iranian forces.

 

There is no other way to spin this week’s exchange of fire between Iran and Israel other than my numerous predictions about how the conflict would play out were exactly right and that I laid out the best Hamiltonian Regional strategy for America to handle Iran’s misadventures – a Hamiltonian Regional strategy Trump himself is following to a tee, much to Tehran’s detriment.

Continue reading “Iran – Pragmatically Distributed is Right Again & Lessons Learned”

Whether Trump’s decision to remain or leave the Iranian nuclear deal will impact North Korea’s negotiating strategy has been batted around in various quarters.

My take is that it will have no impact regardless of whether Trump remains or withdraws, and regardless whether Kim is truly prepared to negotiate an end to his nuclear program or is just stalling for time.

There are two reason to believe this –

1. Trump’s position against the Iran deal is already “priced in” because he has advertised it for years.
2. North Korea’s military options being stronger than Iran makes North Korea’s negotiating position stronger.

 

Since Kim recently agreed to negotiate after Trump had publicly promised for years to withdraw from the Iran deal we have to assume that Kim doesn’t link that agreement to North Korea’s position.  Otherwise, Kim wouldn’t be preparing the groundwork for a summit a week before Trump is expected to terminate the Iran deal.

Kim, at least, is paying attention to what Trump’s foreign policy is.  The same cannot be said for the hapless altright who mistook “Take the oil!” as an “isolationist” slogan because they were too preoccupied renting vans to run over the “Chads” and “Stacys” of the world.  Next election they should try paying attention to the candidate’s platforms.

Continue reading “North Korea Will Not Be Influenced by Trump’s Decision on the Iran Deal”

As far as optics are concerned for the greatest President since Lincoln it does not matter if upcoming negotiations with North Korea result in war or peace.

If Trump is forced into war he becomes a victorious President no matter if the world ends up parting with a sizable portion of the Korean Peninsula.   If a genuine peace is negotiated Trump immediately ranks with the greatest foreign policy Presidents in the history of the GOP.

Either way, thanks to Kim merely appearing to warm to peace after leading one of the most anti-American regimes in history, American voters now see Trump as imperial and god-like.

Continue reading “The Only Thing to Look for in Negotiations With North Korea”

On the limited grounds of mere self-preservation Assad’s antics are bad form.

Continue reading “Assad & How Not to Save a Dictatorship”

Fire Mueller to Trick Democrats into Running on It

On Russia, as on most other issues, I’m so far ahead of other pundits that I can’t see them anymore without a telescope.

Compared to dead pundits, there is still room for improvement.

But among the living, Scott Adams is a second best analyst compared to myself.

Aside from yours truly and Adams, the quality of the remaining Russia-collusion analysts is meager; meager even if you limit your attention to just pro-Trump or Trump sympathizing analysts.

Continue reading “Mueller, California, China & John Paul Stevens”

Immigration legislation is over for the year because both Trump and the Democrats believe a bill more to their liking has better odds of passing after the midterms.  Regardless of who is right, neither has any incentive whatsoever to return to the issue for the remainder of this Congress.  And so they won’t.

Continue reading “Turning Guns into Persuasion Butter”

The Scaramucci Option – Defending General Kelly through Game Theory

Game theory isn’t just for mapping out preemptive nuclear war – a time-honored form of warfare implied in the Constitution and thoroughly Democratic in nature!

It can, and must, be used to defend an embattled, but useful, Presidential Chief of Staff.

To put it diplomatically, the moral grandstanding of anti-Trump about Kelly’s handling of Porter leaves me unmoved by anti-Trump’s opportunistic piety:  If it were up to anti-Trump John Podesta would very likely be Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton; a role he would be able to serve without hearing a peep of objection about his supposed “Pizza parties” or other bizarre extracurricular activities from the Democrats.  Meanwhile, establishment Republicans would only offer their usual, laughably ineffective, “opposition” to Podesta’s lifestyle choices.

Continue reading “The End of Week Circulars for February 18, 2018”

The North Korean missile crisis has proven who the real lunatics on the world stage are:  America’s anti-Trump pundit class.

Given the risk an exchange of nuclear weapons in Northeast Asia is rising everyday one would be right to say anti-Trump should grow the fuck up and worry about war instead of non-issue like parades.  But, then, anti-Trumpers were never adults, are not adults, and never will be adults.

Unlike our children pundits, Kim’s goals are quite rational when it comes to nukes.  Unfortunately for Kim, his nuclear goals are in direct conflict with Trump’s strategic goals.  And it is game theory that teaches when objectives conflict war is often the result.

Continue reading “A Game Theory Assessment of a “Bloody Nose” Attack Against North Korea”

In the DACA game of chicken we see Trump learning how the legislative system works.

Pay attention to how DACA plays out in Congress because the same negotiation dynamic at play with immigration – Trump has something the Democrats want but for which the Democrats don’t want to pay the price – holds true for other legislative items that are on dock:

• Obamacare Subsidies – The Democrats want the subsidies restored in order to stabilize an already creaking Obamacare system, but don’t want to exchange it for Republican demands to repeal other important facets of Obamacare.
• Infrastructure – Unions and their voters badly want Federal money for infrastructure development (and will yearn for it even more if the Supreme Court strikes down Abood) but Democrats are loathe to give Trump another major legislative victory on top of the 2017 tax bill that he and his Party can take credit for in Rust Belt states that will be electorally crucial in 2018 and 2020.
• Defense & Domestic Spending Caps – Democrats want caps on domestic spending lifted but not if defense spending is increased.

Continue reading “General Thoughts on DACA”

It is so because the memo is a legal disaster for anti-Trump’s apparatchiks in the Department of Justice who must now play defense.

Whatever other spin is put to the memo, the most important fact to keep in mind is that from now on everyone who made use of the dossier – Steele, Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, Yates, Ohr, – are each potential criminal suspects for lying and/or misrepresenting information to Federal law enforcement, the FISA Court, or both.

So long as they are all in legal jeopardy for some statutory variation of perjury or lying to Federal Courts, the collusion narrative has changed in a way that favors Trump simply because now it is anti-Trump that has to prove a negative:

Before the memo the burden was on Trump to prove he did not collude with Russia.  Now, the burden is on anti-Trump’s law enforcement wing to prove they did not falsify their evidence.

As we have seen when Trump was trying to prove there was no collusion, proving the negative is a very difficult persuasion mission.

For the sake of argument, let’s brainstorm how anti-Trump can persuade that law enforcement did not lie about the evidence behind the investigation.

Continue reading “The Memo is a Persuasion Disaster for Anti-Trump”