Current Analysis Fading False Flags First the latest assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist happened on a slow news day (Romney wins New Hampshire -- zzzz), prompting many major American outlets to give it prominent coverage. The LA Times editorial board was not pleased [http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-carbo Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Strategic Commodity 101 Every US president since Jimmy Carter has spoken earnestly of the need to wean America from “foreign oil,” which is often more bluntly called “Middle East oil.” After the September 11, 2001 attacks and the resulting spotlight on Saudi Arabia, the clamor grew, only to subside, and now has resurfaced Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis COIN vs. CT? On January 5, amid much pomp and circumstance, President Barack Obama released the newest version of the US Defense Strategic Guidance. [http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf] The document delineated the future course of US defense strategy, reiterating the commitment of the US Laleh Khalili • 3 min read
Current Analysis Narrowing the Options on the Table Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s foreign minister and former representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is not usually a sarcastic man. But he became one in early November following several days of leaks about the negative content of a pending IAEA report on Iran. “Marg yek bar, shivan Farideh Farhi • 14 min read
Current Analysis A New Clarity for Washington Conventional wisdom holds that Washington is one of the big losers in the 2011 upheavals across the Arab world. Two long-time allies, Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak, have fallen, and in their place elections have empowered Islamists, precisely as the deposed dictators had warned for decades. Another Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Blocking Palestinian Statehood When President Barack Obama addressed the UN General Assembly in September 2010, he sounded hopeful that by the following year there would be “an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.” Sure enough, Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Of "Instructors" and Interests in Iraq The Obama administration repeatedly declares that it is “on track” to withdraw all US military forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, in keeping with candidate Barack Obama’s signature promise to “end the war in Iraq.” But, even as the White House avows this intention, policymakers in Washington repea Reidar Visser • 9 min read
MER Article The Grand (Hip-Hop) Chessboard In November 2006, the film The Making of a Kamikaze by Nouri Bouzid, a respected Tunisian director, was screened to great fanfare at the Carthage Film Festival. The film, a collaboration between the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Tunisian Ministries of Interior, Defense and Culture, examines the grievances Hisham Aïdi • 46 min read
MER Article Bagram, Obama's Gitmo On President Barack Obama’s second day in office, one of the three executive orders he signed was a commitment to close the detention facility on the naval base at Guantánamo Bay as soon as possible but no later than one year thence. An inter-agency task force headed by White House counsel Greg Crai Lisa Hajjar • 28 min read
Current Analysis Washington's Physics Problem in Iraq The Joint Chiefs of Staff, says its chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, has a “physics problem.” According to a 2008 accord between the United States and Iraq, the US military is to be evacuated from Mesopotamia -- down to the last tank mechanic and dishwasher -- by the close of the calendar year. Lately, Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Washington Still Refuses to Learn an Obvious Lesson Back in 2004, three years into the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 Commission report made its debut to the gushing admiration of the Washington press corps. The report was everything that the mainstream media adores: bipartisan, devoid of divisive finger-pointing, full of conventional wisdom. Tak Chris Toensing • 2 min read
MER Article American "Blood Money" and a Question of Reparations In the city of Lahore, Pakistan on January 27, 2011, a 36-year old American CIA contractor named Raymond Davis was charged with double murder in the deaths of two Pakistani men, Faizan Haider and Fahim Shamshad. Newspaper accounts describe Davis firing his gun at two men on motorcycles whom he belie Susan Slyomovics • 8 min read
