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Archive for the ‘Middle East Politics’ Category
June 12th, 2011
Category: Middle East Politics
Al-Jazeera reports that the Syrian security forces are “cracking,” with some soldiers refusing to fire on protesters.
May 22nd, 2011
Category: Israel, Middle East Politics
Every year I become more alarmed about Israel’s future, not least because of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s intransigent response to a changing world
May 6th, 2011
Category: Middle East Politics
Belgravia Dispatch features Gregory Djerejian’s speculations about whether Bashar Assad will escalate his crackdown efforts as well as some not-for-the-squeamish videos of the violence in the streets. I find the violence horrifying, but at the same time am repeatedly, pleasantly surprised that the Syrian people have at last moved away from blaming everyone in the [...]
April 16th, 2011
The same edition of The Economist in which Keith found the fascinating article about judges’ lunches (reminds me of the classic Brecht line, in Blitzstein’s translation, “first feed the face, and then talk right and wrong“) has a truly heartbreaking story from the West Bank. Just read it. [Update 17/IV: Here's the original. In this [...]
March 21st, 2011
Even if Libya turns into a quagmire, here are three reasons why a Qaddafist insurgency would pale in comparison to Iraq.
February 11th, 2011
Mark’s cold shower is entirely correct. But I think he may be insufficiently pessimistic. The pieces haven’t been all thrown up in the air to fall back randomly; the system has a lot of structure and the dice are heavily loaded in favor of the army, which is the only institution to come out of [...]
February 11th, 2011
Category: Middle East Politics
Neither a flouring democracy nor a theocracy under the Muslim Brotherhood is as likely as continuing military domination under new forms.
February 10th, 2011
Category: Middle East Politics
The military calls the shots, and the U.S. funds the military. That means we have leverage.
February 5th, 2011
This New York Times story details some of the routine, casual, mindless brutality of the Egyptian secret police, the Mukhabarat. Until last week, the head of the Mukhabarat was Omar Suleiman, now the Vice President. Think about that when you read that the U.S. is pressing the Egyptian opposition to come to terms with Suleiman. [...]
