Sometimes good articles have silly headlines. One such example is a September 25, 2024 piece on Long War Journal titled The Houthis have challenged the Rules-Based International System and must be defeated. I agree that the Houthis, an Islamist Iranian proxy currently in control of much of Yemen, must be defeated. But I do not think they must be defeated because they are challenging some abstract rules-based international system. My concerns are more prudential. They should be defeated because they are currently using Iranian missiles to do remarkable damage to international shipping, occasionally firing them at Israel, and have within the last few years hit Saudi Arabian oil facilities. As a general matter, defeating violent Islamist Iranian proxies is a good thing without appealing to end of history speak. Of course, the article itself largely agrees, notwithstanding the vague headline.
Tag: iran
July 2024: Hezbollah’s Pager Communications Strategy
I came across an interesting Reuters report from July 9, 2024, titled: How Hezbollah used pagers and couriers to counter Israel’s high tech surveillance (headline has shifted over last few weeks). I quote from the article:
Cell phones, which can be used to track a user’s location, have been banned from the battlefield in favour of more old-fashioned communication means, including pagers and couriers who deliver verbal messages in person, two of the sources said.
Sounds like checkmate to me. But the article left out one important detail: Where did Iran-Hezbollah get the pagers? Well, no way such a minor detail could be too important.