Current Analysis Israel’s War Against Lebanon’s Shi‘a When Israel undertook its aerial and naval bombardment of Lebanon on July 12, one announced goal was to recover two Israeli servicemen seized by Hizballah in a cross-border raid earlier that day. The attacks upon civilian infrastructure—beginning with Beirut International Airport and continuing with Jim Quilty • 12 min read
Current Analysis Letting Lebanon Burn Israel is raining destruction upon Lebanon in a purely defensive operation, according to the White House and most of Congress. Even some CNN anchors, habituated to mechanical reporting of “Middle East violence,” sound slightly incredulous. With over 300 Lebanese dead and easily 500,000 displaced, wi The Editors • 8 min read
Current Analysis Converging Upon War “WAR,” proclaimed the three-inch headline in Ma‘ariv, Israel’s leading daily, the day after Hizballah launched its cross-border attack on an Israeli army convoy on July 12. With the onset of Israel’s massive bombing campaign in Lebanon that evening, its aerial and ground incursions into Gaza were tr Robert Blecher • 13 min read
Current Analysis Letting Gaza Burn The captivity of Israeli solider Gilad Shalit is over two weeks old, with no sign of a breakthrough, and a second front with Hizbullah now threatens to divert world attention from the conflagration in Gaza. Following Israel’s grievously disproportionate military rejoinder to Shalit’s capture, over Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Gaza in the Vise Five-year-old Layan cupped her hands over her ears and screwed her eyes shut when she tried to describe the effect of a sonic boom. She said the sound scares her, even though her father, Muntasir Bahja, 32, a translator, has told her “a small lie to calm her”—that the boom is nothing more than a big Omar Karmi • 8 min read
Current Analysis Court Wrongly OKs Profiling Should the police be able to arrest you based on your religion and then imprison you indefinitely while they search for a crime to charge you with? Of course not. The very idea flies in the face of American jurisprudence, whose traditions guarantee due process, equal protection and the presumption Moustafa Bayoumi • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Power of The Guantánamo Bar Association If you doubt that we are still “a nation of laws,” you haven’t visited the American Civil Liberties Union web site to peruse the thousands of pages of government documents concerning the “war on terror” made available through Freedom of Information Act litigation. While Bush administration policy ma Lisa Hajjar • 4 min read
Current Analysis National Unity in Iraq — As One Government or Three? As Iraq continues to slide into civil war, there is certainly a crying need for fresh thinking. Though he finally admits sending a few “wrong signals” with his Iraq policy, President Bush still calls for staying the course. Not every alternative suggestion, however, is a good one. The latest bad id Sinan Antoon • 3 min read
Current Analysis Is Time on Iranian Women Protesters’ Side? In early June, Zanestan—an Iran-based online journal—announced a rally in Haft Tir Square, one of Tehran’s busiest, to protest legal discrimination suffered by Iranian women. The demonstration was also called to commemorate two landmark events in women’s struggle for equality in Iran. The first was the Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 16 min read
Current Analysis Let Cooler Heads Prevail on Iran Once again, President George W. Bush is hinting at preventive war—this time, ostensibly, to stop the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Given the catastrophe that followed Bush’s last “non-proliferation war” in Iraq, and the deceit employed to sell it, one would expect the pub Shiva Balaghi, Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Under the Veil of Ideology When Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” in October 2005, the world appeared to be light years away from the end of history. It seemed that ideologues had once more taken the reins of power and rejoined a battle in which there could be no parley Trita Parsi • 11 min read
Current Analysis Return of the Turkish “State of Exception” Diyarbakır, the political and cultural center of Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces, displays its beauty in springtime. The surrounding plains and mountains, dusty and barren during the summer months, shine in shades of green and the rainbow colors of alpine flowers and herbs. Aro Kerem Öktem • 14 min read
