“War is hell,” is the popular phrase that dates back at least to William Tecumseh Sherman, and no one knows the reality of war better than the two prospective new members of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team. If confirmed, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry will bring to their positions as Secretaries of Defense and …
Happy New Year – we should hope – because 2013 could prove a defining one on a host of interrelated challenges in the Greater Middle East, and elsewhere, that will have profound consequences for the United States and its allies for decades to come. The challenges include Iran and its nuclear program, Syria and its …
Continue reading “For The United States, A Treacherous New Year”
In its coverage of Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal’s fiery speech to celebrate the terrorist group’s 25th anniversary, in which he vowed to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state “from the sea to the river,” the New York Times offered a fascinating analysis of the unfortunate implications. “Mr. Meshal’s harsh words reflected …
Continue reading “The New York Times’ Creative Take On Hamas And Israel”
“I am with the Uprising of Women in the Arab World,” says a sign that Marwa (from Tunisia) holds in front of her, “because women’s sexuality is considered as a [sic] Taboo, while Sexism, Pedophilia, and Rape are seen as commonsense.” “I am with the uprising of women in the arab [sic] world,” says a …
The recent launch of talks between Iranian and Argentine officials over how to improve relations between their countries is troubling enough from a moral standpoint – but the strategic implications are even worse. Buenos Aires long ago concluded that Tehran directed Hezbollah’s 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in the Argentine capital that killed …
Though President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney are clashing mightily over United States policy toward the Greater Middle East — Iran and the bomb, the terror in Benghazi, and so on — neither one is addressing the need for a new, visionary framework that serves U.S. interests in the region. For most of the …
Continue reading “We Need a New Vision for the Greater Middle East”
The troubling travails of Rimsha Masih, a Christian teenager who lives near Islamabad and is facing blasphemy charges for allegedly burning pages of the Koran to cook, reflects the growing intolerance toward religious minorities that amounts to what one expert calls a “gradual genocide” in Pakistan. The latest twist in this sordid tale came this …