@Alon @phillmv @stevenbodzin @BenRossTransit i think that’s right. no one expected the IDF to be so unprepared, they expected some hostages and another round of “mowing the lawn”, but suffered a catastrophic success. 1/

@Alon @phillmv @stevenbodzin @BenRossTransit but once that happened, their strategy has been to make the most of it in terms of inflaming passions, on the (somewhat thin) hope of broadening the war. and i think in that, Israel has been more a partner than it ought to be (and i think the Biden admin deserves some respect for a so-far successful combination of diplomacy and deterrence, despite the scale of horror broadcast to populations in the region). /fin

@Alon @phillmv @stevenbodzin @BenRossTransit (whatever al qaeda thought the US would or wouldn’t do, a combination of overreaction and incompetence by the US means that al qaeda’s broader objective of reducing US influence and any claim to moral authority in the region was achieved. the US won every military battle, but profoundly lost the war.)