"No, the US is not shifting on Hizbullah..."

Bilal Saab in the Daily Star:

"...Contrary to what Perry’s account of the Red Team’s work implied, there is no special significance or mystery to the unit. After the 9/11 attacks, every US intelligence agency was mandated to have a Red Team – an alternative analysis component – so that people in the government could imagine the unthinkable. The CENTCOM unit was established in April 2006 following an order by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, with a charter to provide the CENTCOM commander, leadership, and staff with alternative viewpoints, challenge common assumptions, and anticipate unintended consequences of events and actions.

“It’s just another four to six analysts writing many different papers on different subjects. The fun of Red Team is that it has a little more flexibility than other analysts to play with ‘what if’ scenarios – and do some wishful thinking or doomsday scenarios,” one senior Red Team member told me. Another strategic planner agreed with me that Perry’s article, for whatever reason, created a mystique around the team that is undeserved.

The “Managing Hezbollah and Hamas” report was written around the time President Barack Obama nominated an ambassador to Syria. The report, as one of its authors told me, was “just an analyst’s idea.”

Indeed, I learned that it was not tasked by CENTCOM leaders or any of their superiors. General David Petraeus, then CENTCOM commander, read it, and he even wrote on a hard copy of the report that it was “thoughtful” – though he offered no further evaluation and did not say whether he agreed or disagreed with its conclusions.

And that’s where the discussion of the paper ended, according to the Red Team report’s author ..."