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This article on the wobbly state of Iraqi government makes for heartbreaking reading. Part of the challenge of bringing democracy to Iraq is creating a new mindset in a deeply suspicious, sometimes even paranoid, populace. When I got back from Iraq a few years ago, Stanford’s Humanities program asked me to write about a then-current [...]
Archive for the ‘Middle East Politics’ Category
September 2nd, 2010
Kabuki theatre comes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
July 8th, 2010
Category: Israel, Middle East Politics
We need to have a joint Jewish-American/Arab-American effort to present an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. Hussein Ibish is the guy to move forward with this from the Arab-American community. I just wish he’d return his mail.
May 31st, 2010
Category: Israel, Middle East Politics
Ehud Barak is the responsible Israeli Cabinet minister in the Gaza confrontation. And he blew it.
May 31st, 2010
Category: Israel, Middle East Politics
Debka.com thinks that this was a screwup (h/t TPM): The entire episode bespeaks faulty intelligence on what was going on aboard the six vessels bound for Gaza, although the information was available from daily live broadcasts and easy access to visitors. And another question: The IDF is famous for its innovative electronic warfare capabilities. So [...]
May 31st, 2010
Category: Israel, Middle East Politics
“It was worse than a crime — it was a blunder.” Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, French Foreign Minister, on Napoleon’s assassination of the Bourbon Duc d’Enghien.
May 31st, 2010
Category: Israel, Middle East Politics
It’s best to withhold judgment on the clash between the IDF and pro-Palestinian activists until we know the facts; in the meantime, it does seem that Israel was completely unprepared to handle the situation.
March 15th, 2010
American Middle East diplomacy has rested for three decades on the premise that peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties. That premise is now obsolete.
October 14th, 2009
Category: Climate change, Energy and Environment, Middle East Politics, Moral philosophy, Nationalism, Politics and Leadership, Uncategorized
If you’re still collecting evidence that a society built on extractive wealth is liable to moral pathology, put this one in your dossier. The Saudis are demanding that if we use less of their climate-toxic export, we should pay them (and the other oil-exporting countries) for what we don’t buy. Let us pause in awe [...]
July 30th, 2009
Tisha B’Av — a commemoration of ancient Israel’s destruction and a warning of its future collapse.
