Abu Muqawama, in DC, and Nasrallah Rumors

Abu Muqawama is sitting in Tryst on 18th Street NW in Washington, DC along with what must be the bulk of Washington's blogging community.* Aside from blogging, he is reviewing three papers -- two written by noted and established counterinsurgency experts and one by a particularly precocious Georgetown sophomore who got the idea to compare the British uses of concentration camps in counterinsurgency campaigns in Malaya and Kenya for her history class. Bless. This 19-year old girl is so freaking smart. If she doesn't get an A on this paper, Abu Muqawama will be out for Jesuit blood when he returns to DC in January.

While Abu Muqawama was in the air on his way from London, Nick Blanford sent along his analysis for NOW Lebanon on the rumors that Hassan Nasrallah has been demoted by the authorities in Tehran. Nick rightly dismisses these rumors:

If the kidnapping operation was deemed a mistake, it was one shared by Hezbollah and the leadership in Iran. That is hardly a compelling reason, from the Iranian perspective, to demote the one Hezbollah official who is revered by the party's cadres and who, during his 15-year tenure as secretary general, more than anyone else is responsible for molding Hezbollah’s military wing into the formidable fighting machine that it is today.

*They're playing one of Abu Muqawama's favorite albums in Tryst: Amadou & Mariam's Dimanche a Bamako.