Though the Egyptian government met with some opposition leaders over the weekend, the divide between them remains large. This is especially true when we look at how they want to deal with Egypt’s constitution. Mubarak wants to reform the current constitution. As he said in his Feb. 2 speech (in which he announced his decision […]
Though the opposition in Egypt is frequently presented as a bottom-up movement, there is, in fact, a top-down element to it. As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, the opposition is being led by a ten-person steering committee. This committee arose from a 100-person shadow parliament established in Egypt well before the protests broke out. […]
Normally I don’t bother to take the time to discuss distortions of facts that occur on cable news programs. Such occurrences are, to me, as surprising as eating cauliflower. But I think this one, even though it happened a couple weeks ago, is worth commenting on: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and […]
The thing to watch in Egypt is the military. It all goes back to Crane Brinton’s observation, made in The Anatomy of Revolution, that: …it is almost safe to say that no government is likely to be overthrown until it loses the ability to make adequate use of its military and police powers. That loss […]
Back in December I chose Mary Ellen O’Connell as my Person of the Year for 2010. She’s the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law at Notre Dame, an opponent of the CIA’s drone program, and a strong proponent of international law. For those curious about her work and views, I recommend reading her book, […]
So talks with Iran failed last weekend. And as the New York Times piece on the subject suggests, they fell apart for the very reason I noted in my 2010 Year in Review post: the collision of the UN Charter and the NPT. According to the Times: Mr. Jalili consistently demanded that first the six […]
As the Duma, Russia’s Parliament, debates New START ratification, one thing is clear: the treaty doesn’t legally restrict U.S. missile defense options. Another thing is clear: Russia will probably withdraw from the treaty if the U.S. deploys a missile defense system that significantly reduces the effectiveness of Russia’s strategic deterrent. As Kostantin Kosachyev, head of […]
This is Part II of a two-part post on lawfare. Click here for Part I, in which I critiqued the way in which Brooke Goldstein, director of the non-profit, The Lawfare Project, envisages lawfare. In this post, I examine the solutions she proposes. d One of Goldstein’s primary concerns is the many lawsuits against people […]
Every once in a while, FPA Afghanistan blogger Patrick Frost emails me an article with which I very much disagree and I, in turn, write a post criticizing it. (See a post of mine from last year on preventive war.) The tradition continues with an interview, published by AviationWeek, with Brooke Goldstein, director of the […]
I hope all my readers enjoyed the holidays and are enjoying the new year. Much has happened in my absence. For one, I came across two discussions/debates that are related in a way that people rarely acknowledge. The first one, from Lawfare, is about the legality of long-term detention of enemy combatants. Benjamin Wittes, in […]
I’ll be on holiday break until after the new year. In the meantime, the WWI Christmas truce story never fails to get me in the holiday spirit. Perhaps it will do the same for you. Click here to give it a listen. Until next year…
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, the arc of history is long, but in terms of international relations, it remains unclear to which direction it bends. A continuation of the nation-state system? A move toward world government? A hybrid of the two? In 2010, we’ve seen movement. But toward what? The International Criminal Court (ICC) […]
A few months ago, over at the FPA Arms Control and Proliferation blog, William Sweet, Roger Scher, and I discussed the role Israel’s nuclear program plays in creating regional instability. In particular, Roger wrote, “the acquisition of nuclear weapons in the ME is not driven by Israel, but rather, by other factors…” Today, courtesy of […]
Now that Chanukah has drawn to a close, I wonder, as I tend to do around this time of year, why we celebrate the success of the Maccabean Revolt? As Joseph Telushkin writes in Jewish Literacy, “[o]ne of the sadder ironies of Jewish history is that the Macabees led a successful revolt against King Antiochus’s […]
On Anarchism THE LIE: According to David Brooks, “Assange seems to be an old-fashioned anarchist who believes that all ruling institutions are corrupt and public pronouncements are lies.” Gideon Rose stole this line and used it on The Brian Lehrer Show, saying Assange is “essentially an old-fashioned anarchist” with “an adolescent world view that all […]