Something of a little blog firestorm was sparked when the Washington Post‘s neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin claimed that George W. Bush deserved credit for setting in motion the Tunisian uprising against its U.S.-backed dictator because the seed that sprouted popular revolt was Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
Today in the [...]
Helena Cobban, steeped in years of experience reporting from and writing about the Middle East, has a thought-provoking theory on the sudden break-up of the coalition in Lebanon:
My sense from afar is that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his friends and backers in Tehran are sending a fairly blunt message to the west [...]
News and views on U.S.-Iran relations for December 20, 2010:
The Wall Street Journal: Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes that Afghanistan is costly and “a strategic distraction,” and that U.S. military resources could be better used by preparing for a conflict with North Korea and Iran. Haass says [...]
As a sidebar to a piece Jim Lobe and I have up at IPS, we discussed a poll released in August by Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution and the Zogby International polling firm.
The media coverage of hostile remarks about Iran from some Gulf Arab leaders, among others, largely glazed over the autocratic [...]
This is a guest post from Beirut by Marc J. Sirois, a writer and the former managing editor of the Daily Star newspaper in the Lebanese capital.
If you cook dinner for a large crowd and manage to flub the execution, mangle the presentation, and poison your guests, you find another hobby, right?
If you [...]
Alastair Crooke, the founder of the Conflicts Forum in Lebanon, has a Iran-occupied-Lebanon-scare rebuttal on Race For Iran that is well worth the read. His thesis is one of a grand awakening in the world’s non-elites, but am not sure the idea deserves the profound “deeper significance” he gives it.
Nonetheless, his myth-busting, based [...]
Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel blog has published an article I’ve written on the ongoing holdup of U.S. military aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon last week showcased both the increasing importance of empowering the LAF and the deep misunderstanding and impatience exhibited by those in [...]
This is a guest post from Beirut by Marc J. Sirois, a writer and the former managing editor of the Daily Star newspaper in the Lebanese capital.
The run-up to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Lebanon called forth a barrage of comment from neoconservative circles. Unlike the savvy campaign for war in Iraq, [...]
We’ve been writing a lot here about the hyperventilation of hawks about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Lebanon. Even the U.S. government got in on the action, asking Lebanon to not host the visiting Iranian dignitary.
For a more level-headed perspective of the trip, check out Adam Shatz’s post at the blog of the [...]
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News and views on U.S.-Iran relations for October 19, 2010:
Commentary: J.E. Dyer writes on the Contentions blog that Sunni Arabs are convinced Iran is taking over Iraq. He notes that Iraqi Sunnis in the Awakening movement are moving back into the insurgent camp because of this view, bolstered by fear of ending U.S. [...]