The “Matrix” Comes to Libya
Within days of the deadly assault on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the skies over Libya began buzzing [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/us/politics/benghazi-and-arab-spring-rear-up-in-us-campaign.html?_r=0] with American sLooking for Revolution in Kuwait
In the New York Review of Books, Hussein Agha and Robert Malley imagine the results of the Arab revolts as the possible beginning of a reconstitution of the Ottoman Empire. They see the regional unrest as media-driven, with various partisans asserting their own versions of reality to mobilize populaFissures in Hizballah's Edifice of Control
On August 15, Beirut awoke to the news that more than 20 alleged members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had been captured by a group calling itself “the military wing of the al-Miqdad family.” The group had sent footage to the al-Mayadin television network, which was quickly picked up by other localAfter the Bomb in Beirut
As a recent arrival in Beirut, I quickly learned the Lebanese map, geographic and political, when the bomb hit Ashrafiyya on October 19, killing eight and injuring more than 100. A friend in the US e-mailed to ask if the bomb was close, but since I didn’t hear it explode or smell the smoke, gaugingA Separation at Iranian Universities
On August 6, with the new academic year approaching, the government-backed Mehr News Agency in Iran posted a bulletin that 36 universities in the country had excluded women from 77 fields of study. The reported restrictions aroused something of an international uproar.
Tie a Pink Ribbon
Obligatory displays of Komen pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month continue their spread beyond women’s accessories and yogurt containers into the masculine redoubts of the NFL and even the US military. While NFL players and coaches will spend the month sporting pink accessories, sailors in the SouIran in the Campaign's Crosshairs
The war of words over Iran's nuclear program keeps expanding. It’s now a multi-sided melee pitting Iran against the West and Israel, Israel against the Obama administration, Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, and neo-conservatives like William Kristol against the rest of the US foreign policy establiMen Behaving Badly
Here we go again. A preposterous provocation easily manages to ignite fevered protests in Muslim-majority countries around the world, and everyone is worse off as a result. The episode is playing like a sequel to the 2005 Danish cartoon controversy, but with bigger and better explosions than the oriRomney's Remnants
In Egypt, popular sentiment runs high against those dubbed fuloul (leftovers or dregs), the epithet for politicians and former officials associated with the immense corruption and despotism of the Mubarak regime. Anti-fuloul sentiment ultimately doomed Mubarak’s final prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, tCopts Denounce Islamophobia
In the wake of the lethal rocket attack on State Department personnel in Benghazi, and salafi protesters’ assault upon the US Embassy in Cairo, Egyptian blogger Zeinobia draws attention [http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-protest-that-everybody-ignored.html] to “the protest that ever
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