TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Robert Baer explains his view on the Dubai assassination.

His conclusion is that it wasn’t a failure in the operation’s tradecraft that allowed Dubai to find out the team members. They did everything right — for the 1990s. Mossad didn’t appreciate the technology at the police’s disposal. These large operations are hard, if not impossible, to execute without a trace in modern countries.

After watching Strafor’s analysis of how the operation was handled, that was my conclusion, too. They did it all right, but chose the wrong kind of assassination for the environment. Baer argues, too, that the operation’s potential benefit (killing a relatively unimportant Hamas official) wasn’t worth the potential harm.

Just to be clear, while assassinations conducted in well-functioning societies is a dangerous path, I don’t have any sympathy for the individual Israel killed. He deserved much worse than being given muscle relaxants and suffocated. But that isn’t a reason to do it. The benefits must outweigh the costs, and in this case, it didn’t.