Anniversaries are dangerous days. There is often a flash of attention, lots of words and supposedly deep thought and meaningful promises. Then the sun goes down, and life goes on as before. The world often notes an anniversary without real thought or determination on how to take the steps needed to make it meaningful. As […]
Not so long ago, after twelve hours in the air, I found myself stranded at an international airport at 2 in the morning. The flight had been delayed—my pre-arranged pickup had abandoned his mission or just not shown up, and there was one taxi about to pull out and head home for the night. I was still 90 miles from my room for the night, and offered him twice the normal rate to take on one last fare, which he pointed out, wasn’t even close, direction-wise, to his own waiting bed. But for twice the money, and for Allah, he would do it.
On March 22, 2013, WVUM, the student radio of the University of Miami, invited me into its station in order to discuss the mess taking place in Cyprus. Despite talking for almost 15 minutes on the roots of the crisis in Cyprus and the ECB’s ultimatum, I could not resist continuing the discussion on Iran, […]
Although Tony Blair has “long since given up trying to persuade people [that the Iraq War] was the right decision,” he has found a convenient new way to justify it in time for the 10th anniversary of the invasion. According to Blair, since Saddam Hussein was “20 times worse” than Bashar al-Assad, it logically follows […]
This week: Dennis Rodman hangs out in North Korea, Hugo Chavez dies, America plays out its fiscal drama, and Bashar al-Assad follows in his father’s footsteps.
The U.S. conducted airstrikes against Serbian forces in 1994 and 1999, and against Libyan troops in 2011, to reduce threats of genocide and humanitarian disaster. But the sole superpower sat idle in 1994 while hundreds of thousands were slaughtered across Rwanda and bodies floated down river past horrified neighbors. Just what criteria the U.S. has […]
On February 11, 2011, approximately two years ago, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down as the supreme leader of Egypt after a reign that lasted 30 years. His rise to the pinnacle of the country’s power structure came following the 1981 assasination of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. This was considered the culmination of the Arab […]
Next month, March 2013, will mark the second anniversary of the Syrian uprising. This bloody conflict, as I have repeatedly written, has been characterized by the bombing of bread lines, town-wide massacres and burgeoning sectarian attacks. The enormity of the death toll, 70,000 and counting, should elicit shock to even the casual follower of international […]
Last week, Syria was hit by an airstrike, just a few miles from Damascus. Israel has all but taken responsibility (credit?) for the strike. This level of aggression between the two neighboring nations is rare. The two have continued their battles in rhetoric and by proxy since the birth of the Jewish state, but Israel […]
Yesterday’s strike on a convoy heading from Syria to Lebanon is but one act in an ever constant drama. Israel, for better or for worse, has had a history of violating both the air space and the territorial integrity of neighboring countries. Given that the Jewish State’s geographical location and the fact that it […]
The eleventh Iranian presidential election is scheduled to be held this June. Local council elections will also take place at the same time as presidential elections. To take an analytic look at this year’s Iranian elections from a number of relevant angles, the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) will be discussing the elections with leading observers and […]
Articles From Around the Web The Force By Jill Lepore The New Yorker Once a country that regarded a large standing army as a form of tyranny, the United State’s has now become one of the largest spenders on defense — and its military spending exceeds all of the nation’s in the world combined. […]
Bashar Assad, let me introduce you to Slobodan Milosevic. Technically, you cannot shake his hand – at least today. Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague, after the nation that he led into war and ruin emerged to form a tentative democracy. The new Yugoslav leadership traded Milosevic for economic and political benefits with […]
As war continues to rage on in Syria with no signs of abating, there are renewed calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute any international crimes they find there. Earlier this month, Switzerland led a group of more than 50 countries appealing to the Security Council for referral of the situation to […]
In my previous two posts I provided what I have come to believe are the most important events and aspects of the Syrian civil war to date. Bashar al-Assad’s country is no more; it has been replaced by a parcelized system. Free Syrian Army (FSA) and jihadist units in the northwest: the commercial hub of […]