Thursday, December 5, 2019

'American Experts' Did Not Forsee The Current Uprising In Iran

People protest against increased gas price, on a highway in Tehran, Iran November 16, 2019. Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Liel Leibovitz, New York Post: Iran in flames and ‘experts’ didn’t foresee it due to Trump-hate blindness

The Iranian regime faces the most serious popular challenge to its tyranny in 40 years. Sparked by a 50 percent hike in fuel prices last month, the uprising has spread to the whole country. Security forces have killed hundreds of protesters, and at one point they were even forced to shut down the internet — a sign that the ayatollahs feared for the survival of their regime.

So it’s worth asking: Did our ­experts see this coming?

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I have been reading and following what American policy experts have been saying for years. And to put it bluntly. American foreign policy experts have a lousy track record when it comes to understanding international events and trends. In fact, I have lost count over the years on how many times they have been wrong. And while the above post is focused on Iran, the real focus should be on how America's foreign policy establishment has failed in providing sound and thoughtful policy analysis and recommendations on Russia. It has been a train wreck, from unproven claims of Russian collusion to not understanding what are Russia's national security priorities. And it still continues today, with Russia playing a significant role in the impeachment inquiry that is now playing out in Washington.

5 comments:

Mike Feldhake said...

What do you expect!!!? The entire intel and legal community has been putting up resistance to Trump - 3 experts just testified about how Trump should be impeached yesterday. The whole situation is embarrassing. And yes, good people exist but not in positions of power within these groups.

Roger Smith said...


Mike,

Agreed. "Experts" indeed. Harmless until they reach a level of incompetence such as has been demonstrated by economists earlier this century. Or the global warming crowds' Michael Mann.

Bob Huntley said...

,,,

Anonymous said...

These experts are the smartest kids in the classroom or at least passably so. They have convinced themselves of this through high school and college and got good jobs. They network like the best of them (chimnpanzees) and travel enough that they consider themselves worldly, because they meet with their mirror counterparts across the pond.

On Roger Smith's Michael Mann comment. In modeling it is said that, if your backcasting is nigh perfect, that your model will do a poor job of forecasting. And yes any ninny can misuse software and hardware to brute force a model that will backcast near perfectly.

Models made with such software will show possible correlations, but there would be much work done to investigate and prove the mechanisms.

jimbrown said...

Ex is former and spert is a squirt under pressure.

The future is unknown but we have had an Iran problem since 1979.