My Friend... and the Nonsense of Political Analysis

In recent weeks, various media platforms, especially television, have witnessed a wave of nonsensical political analysis regarding the inevitability of a U.S. military strike on Iran, sometimes based on wishes and other times on sensationalism, which has caused panic among citizens. This has transformed political analysis, which includes scientific tools for examining changes, indicators, variables, and the behavior of states and individuals based on a comprehensive set of data, real-time information, the context of international relations, conflicting interests, and linking them to historical factors and similar or closely related incidents, into mere astrology instead of forecasting potential options and weighing them.

This might not be enough without considering the potential outcomes of any imagined scenarios of military strikes if they occur, to distribute the likelihood of carrying them out; think tanks and research centers usually present visions based on determining the interests of international and regional parties and local powers to understand the behavior of involved parties and active forces linked to the rule of expected gains and losses. This is not a statistical mathematical process but a process based on applying reason derived from the enormous advancements in natural and human sciences, reflecting the diverse ways in which humans interpret the world around them and understand themselves simultaneously on one hand, and the military, geographical, political, economic, cultural, and social data that determine their future behavior on the other hand.

Palestinians and Arabs repeatedly observe media propaganda, such as Ahmed Saeed's experience on the Voice of Arabs radio during the "Setback" War of 1967, and Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Minister of Information in President Saddam Hussein's government during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, along with the term "al-Ejloug" and the illusion of victory. There has also been an exaggeration of Major General Faiz al-Dweiri and his colleagues via Al Jazeera about the capabilities of armed Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, employing military terms for the small area of Gaza that is insignificant in size, amplifying these factions' military capabilities as if they were massive armies. Today, some come to discuss a military strike on Iran as if it were a happening event without a specific assessment of Iran's capabilities and size, especially nuclear, following the ambiguity around the outcomes of the military strike on its nuclear program and facilities from last June, or its ability to reach an agreement with the U.S. administration without the military strike occurring.

My friend says that victory and defeat are relative terms according to the perspective of reading or the inability to achieve imagined goals from the parties. Gains and losses are realities on the ground that humans recognize, whereas the truth is the ability to determine the fate of people and their future behavior. He adds that political analysis based on astrology, wishes, sensationalism, and fear is nonsense contrary to science and its tools.