Robert Farley

COMPARISON. There was some question in comments yesterday regarding the appropriateness of the Iranian arrest of 15 British sailors and marines in the Gulf. Recall the Hainan Island Incident, from 2001? An EP-3 Aries II spyplane had been flying near Chinese airspace when it was shadowed by several PLAN J-8 fighters. One of the fighters […]

FIFTEEN. I also find the British claims as to the location of their sailors and marines a bit more compelling than the Iranian; the Iranians changed their story about the location after the British pointed out that the first Iranian claimed location was, in fact, in Iraqi waters after all. But whether the sailors were […]

LET IT RAIN. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain when the North Koreans and Iranians attack us with their ballistic missiles: Torrential rains wiped out a quarter of the U.S.’ intercontinental ballistic missile interceptors in Ft. Greely, Alaska last summer — right when North Korea was preparing to carry out an advanced missile launch, according to […]

A PRETTY GREAT MOVIE? What’s odd about Reihan Salam’s review of the Gandhi DVD is that he doesn’t conclude that it’s a pretty great movie; he says that the first 45 minutes are very good, that the rest isn’t very good, and then tries to explain why 2/3rds of the movie is unwatchable. It’s a […]

ROBUST. According to the BBC: The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt. Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet. But the Ministry of Defence’s […]

THE POLITICS OF SHAME. I’ve been just a bit skeptical of suggestions that Gonzales is done; in any normal administration, yes, such a furor would probably result in a resignation, but as we’ve seen time and again, this is not a normal administration. It doesn’t play by the same rules. Most specifically, it doesn’t seem […]

RUSSIA LOWERS THE BOOM. This is very good news; Russia is taking a hard line on Iranian uranium enrichment. Combine this with evident increasing popular and elite disenchantment with Ahmadinejad, and I’m almost starting to get optimistic that Iran can be convinced not to develop a nuclear capability. A really, really good move right now […]

J-10. Ken Silverstein had a good post on the over-hyping of the J-10 a couple of weeks ago. The J-10 is China’s newest fighter aircraft, and while it has some impressive specifications, Ken notes that the J-10 — which, according to China, entered service last December — was in development for decades; and the plane […]

IRAQI AIR FORCE REVISITED. I posted a bit in October on the progress (or lack thereof) being made by the Iraqi Air Force. Long story short, the force was virtually non-existent, and the lack of attention given to it carries some long-term implications for the relationship of the United States to whatever kind of state […]

CURVY. I’ve been told by people with experience in such things that the relationship between handler and source in the intelligence community tends to be quite close. Thus, I’m not at all surprised that the Germans are still protecting Curveball, even after the information he provided has been proven demonstrably false. The situation is similar […]