Middle Eastern News Articles of Note

Every now and again, the Internet inundates me with a few really good articles about strategy and intelligence, and particularly about the Middle East. There have been some really good ones this week, and I wanted to share.

For those who are interested in espionage, strategy, and the relationship between intelligence and international politics, there's a really interesting set of articles on those topics. Prominent journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed in two articles (1, 2) that the Syrian chemical weapons attack in which President Obama's "red line" was crossed was actually orchestrated by a group of Syrian rebels and Turkish intelligence agents in order to compel the United States to involve itself in the conflict. Two articles detail the technical (Seymour Hersh's Volcano Problem) and political (Turkey's Syria Policy: Why Seymour Hersh Got it Wrong) reasons why Hersh's claims are extremely unlikely.

In yesterday's Arab Times (a Kuwaiti English language newspaper), there was an article entitled Amiri Diwan urges all off tape case; a corresponding article in the Kuwait Times seems to have been deleted. The Arab Times article didn't go into detail about the alleged contents of the tape, which drew my interest. Al Jazeera remedied that: Kuwait orders media blackout on 'coup' video. Go check it out.

General David Petraeus and CNAS fellow Vance Serchuk had a brilliant op-ed in the Washington Post on Wednesday: U.S. needs to plan for the day after an Iran deal. As the article notes in its concluding paragraph:

All too often in U.S. foreign policy, we set a strategic objective and pursue it doggedly — only to be insufficiently prepared for the consequences when we achieve our goal.

Finally, and also on the topic of Iran, the OSIMINT blog has a good article about expanding Iran-Pakistan border security, which discusses recent developments in the long-term insurgency in the Balochistan region. Go have a look.