Gaza continues to be immolated. Israeli airstrikes killed another 8 people overnight, which means nearly 2100 people there have been killed since the fighting began, and it's becoming clear that the IDF is systematically targeting what little economic infrastructure Gaza has actually developed. Hamas executed 18 alleged spies yesterday, and one of their rockets killed … Continue reading What if Gaza ends where it began?

A lot of attention has rightly been focused on the danger that the Yazidi community has been under since IS swept through northern Iraq (many of those who were trapped in the mountains around Sinjar have gotten to freedom, but many others have been killed or forced to convert to Islam), but this discouraging story … Continue reading The Shabak: another minority at risk from IS

Well, this is awkward: When American forces raided a home near Falluja during the turbulent 2004 offensive against the Iraqi Sunni insurgency, they got the hard-core militants they had been looking for. They also picked up an apparent hanger-on, an Iraqi man in his early 30s whom they knew nothing about. The Americans duly registered … Continue reading You made me feel so bad

So it turns out that Iranian FM Mohammad Javad Zarif doesn't think Western leaders are idiots after all. Despite what some media reports have said (and what some of us stupidly just picked up without checking), he wasn't linking sanctions relief to fighting IS in Iraq yesterday, he was linking relief to modifying the heavy … Continue reading Always check the video

My latest at LobeLog looks at the fringe theory that Ukraine, not Russia or pro-Russia separatists, shot down MH17. Journalist Robert Parry has been pushing this theory since the incident, and it won't go away despite a lack of evidence (Parry's reporting relies entirely on anonymous sources), in no small part because the US government … Continue reading The case of MH17 remains needlessly (?) curious

Mass quarantine, it seems to me, is a highly problematic tool for halting the spread of a deadly epidemic like Ebola. In theory it makes a certain amount of success, but in practice it sure looks like you're isolating whole groups of people and essentially abandoning them to the disease. Couple that with the fact … Continue reading Ebola is destabilizing Liberia

Iran is ready to help out with Iraq's whole Islamic State problem, if the rest of the world makes it worth their while: Iran is ready to join international action against jihadists in Iraq provided the West lifts crippling sanctions, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday. His comments followed a call by French Foreign … Continue reading Today in “stuff that will never happen,” Iran makes a generous offer

Congressman Gohmert: Big fan of your work, especially the part where you say incredibly stupid things, like, all the time. If I could offer just the teeniest critique of your otherwise excellent material, though, it would be this: your theory that the Obama administration has been infiltrated at the highest levels by the Muslim Brotherhood … Continue reading Free advice for Louie Gohmert

Taking a day off, or most of one, and hitting up a museum or two. I may have something later today. As always, thanks for reading. If you're in search of something to read this morning, Michael Collins Dunn has put together a series on Alfred J. Butler (d. 1936), a British Orientalist who pioneered … Continue reading Good reads: Alfred J. Butler and the history of Egypt

Not to steal Atrios's bit, but it's this guy: Background