li_121312 Current Analysis Khaled el-Masri and Empire's Oblivion Two of today’s headlines together provide a good example of the work of imperial forgetting. On the front page of the New York Times, a story [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/us/zero-dark-thirty-torture-scenes-reopen-debate.html?hpw&pagewanted=all&_r=1&] about the depiction of torture in the forth Darryl Li • 6 min read
Current Analysis Four More Years The 2012 US presidential election elicited less interest among Palestinians than any such contest in living memory. While most Israelis, and their government in particular, expressed a clear preference for a Republican victory, Palestinians seemed resigned to continuity in US foreign policy irrespec Mouin Rabbani, Chris Toensing • 11 min read
Current Analysis Condi-ist Manifesto In one of the most nonsensical sentences published in the Washington Post since the US invasion of Iraq, and perhaps ever, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice writes in a November 23 op-ed [http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/condoleezza-rice-syria-is-central-to-holding-together-the-middle Sheila Carapico • 2 min read
Current Analysis Six Questions for Fareed Mohamedi It’s like clockwork: When the race for the White House is on, the contestants will promise to make America self-sufficient in energy. Everyone understands this concept to mean less dependence on imported oil from the Middle East, though politicians do not always come out and say so. The implication Chris Toensing • 6 min read
Current Analysis 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 s Steve Niva • 4 min read
Current Analysis Iran 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 establi Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Romney'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, t Steve Niva • 5 min read
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 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
MER Article Brownlee, Democracy Prevention Jason Brownlee, Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the US-Egyptian Alliance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Chris Toensing • 4 min read
MER Article Big Empire, Little Minds Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan (Knopf, 2012). Christian Parenti • 9 min read
