Current Analysis The Pakistan Taliban A severed head is waved before a baying crowd. The camera zooms in to show a second bloodied corpse, the eyes gouged out and a wad of cash stuffed in the mouth, swinging from a pole. He is one of 29 “criminals, drug pushers, bootleggers and extortionists” executed for running Graham Usher • 14 min read
Current Analysis There and Back Again in Somalia When 2006 dawned in Somalia, the war-torn Horn of Africa nation had been without a functioning central government for 15 years. The main claimant to the title, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) formed in 2004, was unable to extend its authority beyond a small portion of the countryside. An uneasy Ken Menkhaus • 18 min read
Current Analysis Somalia Airstrikes Are Not the Answer On January 24, the US launched a second round of airstrikes in Somalia against alleged al-Qaeda terrorists believed to be responsible for the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Intended to eradicate these extremist elements from the Horn of Africa, the airstrikes instead exacerb Khalid Mustafa Medani • 2 min read
Current Analysis Winter of Lebanon’s Discontents In the two months since the standoff between the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the Hizballah-led opposition began in earnest, the atmosphere in the Lebanese capital of Beirut has oscillated between ambient anxiety and incongruous routine. Tensions exploded on January 25, when four Le Jim Quilty • 16 min read
Current Analysis A Reckoning Deferred How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That haunting question, posed by John Kerry to Congress when he was a discharged Navy lieutenant in 1971, helped to slow, and eventually stop, a pointless, unpopular war in Vietnam. That question, in part because Kerry declined to pose it The Editors • 10 min read
Current Analysis Iraqis Deserved Better Justice For much of the time that I wrote my biography of Saddam Hussein between 2003-2005, its ending remained unclear. Throughout the process of researching and writing the book, Saddam’s government was overthrown, and he went into hiding. In December 2003, US soldiers participating in Operation Red Dawn Shiva Balaghi • 2 min read
Current Analysis Behind the Gaza Breakdown The latest convoluted set of events within Palestine, and at its borders, form a depressing tableau that mirrors the conflict as a whole. Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Study Group Shows Why US Must Leave It is time for the United States to leave Iraq. Not because the consequences of withdrawal won’t be dire for Iraq, but because these consequences are occurring anyway, in slow motion. Civil war and chaos already envelop the country, both conditions are getting worse and the United States is powerle Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Israeli Siege is Undermining Peace Since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent Middle East tour concluded without concrete results, and unity talks between Fatah and Hamas remain at a standstill, the possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian political compromise appears bleaker than ever. But Palestinian lives and livelihoods shou Lori Allen • 2 min read
Current Analysis Grinding Palestine To Powder Secretary Rice’s recent Middle East tour concluded without any discussion of peace between Israel and Palestine. Unity talks between Fatah and Hamas have hit a standstill. In other words, the possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian political compromise appears bleaker than ever. Meanwhile, US and Euro Lori Allen • 4 min read
Current Analysis The Election Yemen Was Supposed to Have It was supposed to be the election that changed everything. The “90 percent presidency,” wherein the incumbent of 28 years won successive terms in office by laughably large margins, would be relegated to the past. Instead, a more credible accounting of the popular will would prove to Western governm Gregory Johnsen • 10 min read
Current Analysis Kuwait’s Annus Mirabilis Kuwait has had an exceptional year, and it isn’t over yet—though one might not know from reading even the alternative press in the West. Fast on the heels of two remarkable developments in the slow democratization of the emirate, a convulsion gripped another part of the Middle East, Mary Ann Tétreault • 22 min read
