Current Analysis "Green on Blue": Message Not Received American and NATO media handlers are in message control mode trying to contain the fallout from the escalation of insider killings of American and NATO soldiers by trained Afghan forces, known in military parlance as “green on blue” attacks. The latest rash of insider attacks [http://www.nytimes.com Steve Niva • 4 min read
Current Analysis Liberal Sophistry About Drones Drones kill civilians, but far fewer civilians than other forms of kinetic warfare, and anyway, war is about killing. The drones’ ability to kill from a distance is no more unsavory than aerial bombing, and in any case drones “enable us to kill enemies without exposing our own personnel.” That drone Laleh Khalili • 3 min read
Current Analysis Nays and Yeas in Charlotte The kerfuffle over the initial non-mention of Jerusalem in the Democratic Party platform throws into particularly sharp relief just how disconnected are discourse and reality when it comes to Israel-Palestine. Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Explaining Obama's Deference to Israel It is a truism that President Barack Obama inherited a mess from his predecessor in the White House. The United States was bogged down in two foreign wars of dubious provenance; Wall Street gamblers had flung the economy into deep recession; and, not least, the US had seemingly abandoned its self-ap Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Displaced Syrians As in Iraq, the internal war in Syria has forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes. Some 155,000 Syrians have registered [http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96136/Briefing-The-mounting-Syrian-refugee-crisis] with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq or Turkey Chris Toensing • 1 min read
Current Analysis Egyptian Politics Upended When he took office on June 30, President Muhammad Mursi of Egypt looked to have been handed a poisoned chalice. The ruling generals of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had tolerated a clean presidential election but then had hollowed out the presidency, saddling Mursi with an executiv Mona El-Ghobashy • 18 min read
Current Analysis To Save Syria, Work with Russia and Iran As the violence intensifies in Syria, external powers, including the United States, are embracing increasingly belligerent positions. Indeed, in recent days the United States and Turkey have announced plans to study a no-fly zone after calls by many American commentators for a more direct military r Aziz Rana, Aslı Bâli • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Left, the Jews and Defenders of Israel When Menachem Begin first visited the United States in December 1948, a host of Jewish notables including Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Irma Lindheim (former president of Hadassah), Seymour Melman (former president of the Student Zionist Federation) and the biblical scholar Harry Orlinsky wrote to Joel Beinin • 13 min read
Current Analysis Tripoli's Troubles to Come Tripoli is the epicenter of a high-stakes conflict unfolding in Lebanon. In 2012 alone, armed clashes have erupted six times, in mid-February, thrice in May, again in early June and most recently in late July, between Sunnis and ‘Alawis there. The firefights in Lebanon’s second city, a port town of Maren Milligan • 18 min read
Current Analysis Plain Old Murder Drones are President Barack Obama’s weapon of choice in the war on terror. Since taking office, he has ordered over 280 drone strikes in Pakistan alone. That’s more than eight times as many as George W. Bush authorized and doesn’t even count the scores of other unmanned attacks in Somalia and Yemen Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis My 50 Minutes with Manaf During one of my regular visits to Syria, I was with a group of friends at one of the bustling new restaurant-bars that dotted Damascus’ old city, around Bab Touma. Some places were more popular than others, frequented by internationals and a particular stratum of Damascene society that included som Bassam Haddad • 8 min read
Current Analysis How the Army Won Egypt's Election Jubilant chants echoed far beyond Tahrir Square when the Muslim Brothers' candidate, Muhammad Mursi, was confirmed as Egypt’s first civilian president last week. Mursi’s election was lauded across the globe, and many are hailing today’s “transfer” of power as a triumph for democracy. But there is l Joshua Stacher • 3 min read
