williambendix.bsky.social
Associate Professor of International Relations & Intelligence, Dakota State University
Opinions, rarely offered, are my own
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“I think there were some defense operations going on,” says Rodgers. “They probably brought those dump trucks in to try to seal off the tunnel entrances, to help protect against attacks.” There’s also the possibility that Iran was able to move nuclear material out of the facility before the attack.
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Further complicating the assessment of the Fordow damage is that satellite images from earlier last week show a significant amount of activity at the site, including over a dozen dump trucks going to and from it.
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Iranians still have nuclear material that can be enriched to weapons-grade levels. “They still have underground facilities where they could do that, and they still have the ability to produce centrifuge components, so they can still make the centrifuges for the facilities.”
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“That clearly indicates to me that they weren’t trying to temporarily shut down the facility.... We targeted these apparent ventilation shafts so that we could structurally destroy or do as much damage as we could rather than temporarily try to shut down Fordow.”
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It’s also notable what US bombs didn’t hit. The oblong white building in satellite images of Fordow is likely key support infrastructure for the facility, potentially providing everything from air conditioning to backup power generation.
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Streetcore is a great final album. What a talent he was.
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Very tricky. Not sure if I've ever used this word. Anyway, I'm among the lucky today:
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Nail-biter for me.
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Kupchan today also busy ignoring Putin's many public statements: "Taking membership off the table will make it easier to negotiate a cease-fire with Russia, whose legitimate objections to Ukraine’s entry into NATO partially motivated its invasion in 2022."
www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/clos...
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I found this one tough. Almost went back to my heart-stopping, six-guess routine.
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Coincidentally, Nixon's political rival, John F. Kennedy, also visited Canada in 1957. Kennedy, a senator at the time, delivered a speech at the University of New Brunswick where he discussed US-Canada relations.
www.jfklibrary.org/archives/oth...
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Sticking with my strategy of high-risk, high-reward guesses.
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crimereads.com/unsub-is-mos...
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Kind of tricky:
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I got really, really lucky again.
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"But it is reasonable to be skeptical that Iran will accept a deal at the barrel of a gun. Even if Iran did strike a bargain, the country might not faithfully implement it. Instead, the most likely outcome is that Iran continues to retaliate."
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"At first, it might seem outlandish to think that Iran would respond to an Israeli attack with anything other than belligerence. But if the damage to Iran’s nuclear program and military is greater than it seems, Tehran might look for off-ramps."
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"But to actually build a nuclear weapon, Iran needs more than weapons-grade enriched uranium. It also needs processing equipment that can turn the uranium into metal, shape it into weapons components, and then put the weapon together. Doing all that in the midst of war will be difficult."
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"The best way to prevent Iranian reconstitution would be an aggressive pursuit of a new nuclear deal with Tehran, at precisely the moment when Iran’s leadership will be least interested in one given their likely outrage at the Israeli attack."
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"Iran already has enough highly enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons. This is containerized and believed to be stored at three different locations, and it is unclear whether Israel will be able to get all of it in the ongoing military strikes."
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"Although Iran is routinely ranked as a leading state sponsor of terrorism, a terror attack on Israel, especially in the short run, would be equally hard. Israel’s counterterror defenses are formidable, and terror attacks, especially large damaging ones, can’t be conjured up overnight."
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"It seems unlikely that another [Iranian] missile or drone attack would have much impact on Israel. Israel still has formidable missile defenses, its population is well sheltered, and Iranian munitions have small payloads and are relatively few in number."
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"Iran’s first problem is distance, and its second problem is Israel’s defenses. Because of both, Teheran has little ability to use its air force against Israel. What’s more, with roughly 700 miles of Iraq, Syria, and Jordan separating them, Iran cannot mount a ground attack against Israel."
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I always feel smug when I get in three. I'm in a state of daylong jubilation when I get it in two (which is almost never).
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Ha! Yeah, seems to be working.
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Got very lucky. But also, I'm now picking silly words:
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"[Soon] Russia will likely pass 1 million total military casualties.... Russia has also consistently lost 2 to 5 times more fighting vehicles than Ukraine on the battlefield, including roughly 1,200 armored fighting vehicles, 3,200 infantry fighting vehicles and 1,900 tanks since January 2024."
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"Ukraine’s defense-in-depth strategy, bolstered by U.S. and European support, has transformed the battlefield into a war of attrition that favors defenders and punishes attackers."
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Going for unusual choices seems to improve my performance:
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I'm now trying to guess odd words, and thus my increased success:
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