SCOTUS rules on Travel Ban

[Dill]

(06-29-2018, 12:49 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: In the meantime, could you educate us all on Al Kuds day?

The Royal pronoun again lol.  Al Quds day is your hobby horse; I've see no evidence anyone else would be interested in the subject. But I'll go off topic for a moment to address a response specifically to you, to explain why no one really needs to be "educated" about Al Quds Day, and certainly not on this thread.  (No one else need read this. Seriously.)

When Western intel professionals go about assessing the threat level posed by Iran, they certainly do pay attention to what political actors there say about Israel.  If a general says "Israel will not exist in 25 years" or a Revolutionary Guard writes that the "Zionist entity" should be destroyed, the professionals take notice. But because they are professionals, they consider a bit more closely than laypersons. They ask: what is the status of the speaker--i.e., does he actually speak for the regime? What did the speaker mean--e.g., is he speaking of killing Israelis or getting rid of the ethnic state, much as people wanted the end of apartheid South Africa? What is the venue--is it an interview with a foreign reporter, a speech at a campaign rally, the parliament? Who is the audience--is the statement more about shoring up support at home, confounding political opponents, solidarity with groups in Lebanon or Yemen, or actually addressing Israel, say as a response to Israeli air strikes in Syria? And also, are the statements internally contested in any way, say by political opponents, the "liberal media" there, or even subtly by silence from the Supreme Leader.

Further, how the speaker is embedded in Iranian institutions--Military commander, member of parliament, party leader, member of the judiciary or the Council of Guardians--is significant. Even John Bolton recognizes that Iranian politics is fragmented and competitive. Maverick groups like thep Revolutionary Guard often speak "out of turn," so to speak, and out of line with official policy.

Most importantly, intel professionals assess whether anything follows from such statements.  E.g., if the CiC of the Iranian military threatens to reduce Tel Aviv to rubble and jets are scrambled, there is concern.  If nothing happens on the ground, then likely the statement is just rhetoric.

Finally, they find it important to entertain competing hypothesis explaining Iranian behavior towards Israel--including a general ethical concern for the well being of Palestinians. Analysis comes before judgment.

This procedure holds for other kinds of threats as well. Statements of political actors are matched with data from the ground, for example, have produced recurring assessments that the current Iranian government is rational in managing nuclear policy, responsive to outside pressure, and not at present committed to obtaining a nuclear bomb.

Laypersons often find this sort of analysis tedious and uninteresting. Understandably. But things that do excite many laypersons--say a Breitbart article on Al Quds day http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/06/01/london-police-we-cant-stop-hezbollah-flags-flying-on-al-quds-march/--may be tedious and uninteresting to intel professionals. For them, a day set aside in 1979 for Muslims worldwide to express their solidarity with Palestinians has diminishing rewards for assessing Iranian foreign policy--even if participants sometimes shout "death to America."

I am not an intel professional, but I do like to follow their discussions, country reports, and assessments and respect their method, like that demonstrated in this estimate from 2007. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/20071203_release.pdf
Thus I would not likely enjoy a discussion of Al Quds Day with someone whose goal would be--Breitbart style--to make it representative of Iranian policy or "Islam" in general, someone who treats Iran as a monolith directly and primarily knowable through the most controversial statements of some leaders. My efforts to introduce counter perspectives and complicating information drawn from actual intel estimates would only be tagged as inane, lying deflection, boring, predictable, and typical of my "ilk."

"How Al Quds day is celebrated" would make a good segment for Fox news.  It could be canned for the moment, then when the next conflict with Iran emerges, as it will with Bolton and Trump responsible for national security, it could be replayed daily as commentators like Sebastien Gorka explain the threat to "our ally" for Fox viewers. But no one will go there who wants to understand Iran and its government, or the Middle East conflict in general, or is serious about assessing any threat level posed by Iran.