With President Obama’s second term around the corner, it is a perfect moment to look back at the administration’s so-called “light footprint” strategy – a military strategy characterized by the use of targeted tactics like drone strikes and the avoidance of large-scale, on-the-ground intervention. As journalist David Sanger summarized it in a video interview, it […]
As most media outlets are reporting, over the last month several errant mortars have been fired into Israel’s Golan Heights from Syria. The IDF has determined many of them can be traced back to forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Showing restraint the Jewish state chose not to respond believing that the shells were […]
The possible Balkanization of Syria is an increasingly likely prospect – at least for the short-term – and could provide a historic counterpoint in the Middle East to what the West did to carve up the region almost a century ago. With the Ottoman Empire defeated after World War I, the triumphant Allies sought to ensure their […]
Back in the swing of things. “Iraq could overtake Russia as the world’s second-largest oil supplier behind Saudi Arabia by the 2030s, nearly tripling its current output, according to a report from the International Energy Agency.” (h/t The LA Times) “Iraq has signed contracts to buy Russian arms worth $4.2bn (£2.6bn; 3.2bn euros) this year, […]
Iraq’s oil minister Abdul Kareem Luaiby anticipates his country’s exports for September to exceed 2.6 million barrels a day, a figure not reached in the last 20 or so years. Part of this increase stems from a deal cut between the central government and the Kurdish autonomous region. The Kurds had stopped exporting oil back […]
Bijan Kian is a Senior Fellow for Global Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. He has served President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama from 2006 to 2011 as a member of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. In 2011, he served as a member of the White […]
It essentially was an accident. Saddam Hussein had been whipped in the 1991 Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush called on Iraq’s Kurds and Shia to rise up. They did — but Bush was all talk; there was no U.S. military help and they were slaughtered. So as Kurdish refugees clung to the freezing […]
While a bit outdated, this documentary addresses the practice of spinning acts of war to be more palatable for citizens of the United States in the last half century. Every United States president has said he wants peace and that war is only used as a final option. That couldn’t be further from the truth. […]
Introduction by Azadeh Moaveni: Scheherezade Faramarzi is a celebrated veteran correspondent whose over three decades of reporting for the Associated Press (AP) has spanned from North Africa to Pakistan. Long respected in the field for her profound understanding of the Middle East and keen reportorial eye, she remains one of the most authoritative journalistic observers of […]
An Emerging Power? The Council on Foreign Relations recently published an interesting memorandum titled “Renewed Violence in Iraq.” The contingency report, authored by Douglas Ollivant of the New America Foundation, offers suggestions as to how the U.S. can help the Iraqi government cope with myriad internal security threats. Ollivant begins by identifying the major social/national fault […]
As mentioned in my last blog, I’ve been off the grid for a while. I’m currently in Alabama hanging out with my 85 years young Mom but have been playing catch up with current events. I have to get up every few minutes and stand in front of her air conditioner but then I gamely […]
Been off the blogosphere for the last month because of a project I was working on. Thought I’d get back into the saddle by looking into the latest on Afghanistan. On July 10th in response to a reporter’s question, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said the surge had been a success. In response to some […]
Although American statesmen and Republican politicians of the Bush era hate to admit it, one of the foundational aims of the war in Iraq – the creation of a liberal democracy – guaranteed an increase in Iranian influence both within Iraq and across the region. The politics of Shi’a majority were immediately advantaged by electoral […]
During the Vietnam War, the United States dropped as many as 2 million tons of cluster bombs on Laos. It was called a secret air war but was, of course, no secret to the Laotians. Thousands of people have been killed and wounded by the bombs, which continue to litter the countryside. What director […]
Way back in February I expanded on a report in the Christian Science Monitor that suggested al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had set up shop against the Assad regime, in Syria. Writing both here and for The American Spectator, I joined the chorus of analysts, academics and pundits who urged caution against arming Syrian rebels – precisely because it’s unthinkable to equip battle-hardened […]