The Blurred Lines of Religious Zealotry
by Paul Pillar Last week I commented on the unhelpful habit of throwing everything Islamist, no matter how extreme or moderate, into a single conceptual bucket and writing off the whole lot as...
View ArticleSaudi Arabia: Champion of Human Rights?
by Thomas W. Lippman Imagine hearing news that North Korea was planning to organize an international conference on criminal justice reform, or being invited by Cuba to a conference promoting political...
View ArticleIran Nuclear Talks: The Price of Failure
by Mitchell Plitnick Once upon a time, it seemed that the Obama administration had held off opponents in Congress as well as pressure from Israel in order to press forward with negotiations with Iran....
View ArticleWhat Next?
via LobeLog by Robert E. Hunter Since the United States invaded Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, and began an era of major military operations in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, “what next”...
View ArticleBibi Comes to Town
via Lobelog by Peter Jenkins The Prime Minister of Israel addressed the UN General Assembly on Sept. 29, once more filling the chamber with fire and brimstone. Like many a leader before him, he built...
View ArticleIs Rouhani Preparing the Ground for Failed Nuclear Talks?
via Lobelog by Derek Davison Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s recently concluded trip to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly offered signals that Iran’s complex political...
View ArticleIran Nuclear Talks: Ironies, Observations and a Bottom Line
via Lobelog by Chas Freeman Negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 are meeting amidst rapidly evolving international and regional circumstances. Whether they succeed or fail, their discussions will have an...
View ArticleNetanyahu Disappoints at the UN
via Lobelog by Mitchell Plitnick After Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stirred up some controversy by terming Israel’s recent bombardment of Gaza a “war of genocide” at the UN General Assembly last...
View ArticleWhere is Libya Headed?
via Lobelog by Wayne White While the world’s attention is focused elsewhere, Libya continues descending into ever-greater chaos, with Islamist militants now holding the upper hand. The longer this...
View ArticleBarack Obama and the Will to Fight
by John Feffer The Obama administration has admitted that it misjudged the extremists who set up the Islamic State in chunks of territory torn from Iraq and Syria. The director of national...
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Iran Talks: A Painful Choice Looms
via Lobelog by Peter Jenkins The absence of any late September breakthrough on the central issue in the nuclear negotiation with Iran—Iran’s mastery of uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used...
View ArticleFighting for Democracy While Supporting Autocracy
via Lobelog ISIS and Bahrain’s F-16 by Matar E. Matar For the second time in recent history, the United States is trading away support for democracy and fundamental human rights protections in Bahrain...
View ArticleTehran Workshop Offers Insight Into Nuclear Talks
via Lobelog by Eldar Mamedov With only a little over a month to go before the deadline for a comprehensive deal on Iran’s nuclear program, a group of European, Gulf and Iranian academics and...
View ArticleWhen Military Power is Not Enough
via Lobelog by Robert E. Hunter At West Point last May, President Obama said that “Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.” He continued “…US military action...
View ArticleUS Policy Towards Iran Played Big Role in Rise of Sunni Extremism
via Lobelog by Shireen T. Hunter Throughout the recent handwringing about how the US and other Western countries failed to foresee the emergence of ISIS, one factor has been totally ignored, either...
View ArticleThe US and a Crumbling Levant
by Emile Nakhleh The international media is currently mesmerized by the advance of Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) on the Syrian city of Kobani near the Turkish border, but Arab states and the US need to look...
View ArticleTalking Turkey on ISIS, the Kurds, and Kobani
via Lobelog by Derek Davison Turkey, nominally a member of America’s new anti-ISIS coalition (well, maybe), has for some time now been refusing to allow Kurdish reinforcements and weapons to cross its...
View ArticleBookends of America’s Broken Regional Policy
via Lobelog by James A. Russell It’s hard not to cringe watching the United States careen around the Middle East these days, dispensing bombs, money and political fealty in various doses depending on...
View ArticleExplainer: The Oil Price Plunge
via Lobelog by Sara Vakhshouri In the past several days—despite the conflicts affecting Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia—oil prices have been on a downward trend, hitting their lowest number in the past...
View ArticleIranian Strategy in Syria Could Make Peace Possible
via Lobelog by Henry Johnson The group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS), beyond its doctrinaire propaganda and lurid beheadings, is beginning to uproot the foundations of order in the Middle...
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