I know I can be a bit hard on the Saudis, what with all the authoritarianism, and the corruption, and the extremism, and the regional destabilization, and the support for bad actors, and the human rights violations, and the...well, we're getting off the point. It's only fair that I note a case where they're trying … Continue reading You have to start somewhere

Don't look now, but the Iraqi army is almost in position to try to recapture Ramadi from ISIS: More than six months after falling to the Islamic State, the city center of Ramadi is under siege by Iraqi security forces and tribal fighters backed by American air power. Commanders say that as few as 300 … Continue reading The Iraqi army is closing in on Ramadi

Today is the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian War after 3 and a half years. As if on cue, Bosnian experts have just discovered a mass grave from that conflict: Forensic experts say they found a mass grave in northeast Bosnia most likely containing victims' remains from … Continue reading Morbid, but somehow appropriate

In advance of UN-brokered peace talks scheduled to begin in Geneva tomorrow, the Houthi-Saleh and pro-Hadi sides in Yemen's civil war have agreed to a seven-day ceasefire starting at midnight tonight, local time (about five hours from when I'm writing this). I have no idea whether those talks have any chance of ending the war, … Continue reading Yemen is also on ceasefire watch

Over the weekend, that potential agreement to end Libya's civil war got a bit of a boost, but new information suggests that the whole thing might be a bunch of smoke and mirrors. A bunch of world powers, 17 of them in fact, signed a letter supporting the deal that was (supposedly) tentatively reached last … Continue reading Libya on ceasefire watch

My latest at LobeLog looks at a recent Zogby Research poll of people in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. It's a wide-ranging poll with a lot of meat to it, but the most illuminating material to me was how people answered the question of what causes extremism: Still, it … Continue reading How people in the Middle East explain ISIS

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for these Syrian peace talks to get going: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the United States and Saudi Arabia wanted "terrorist groups" to join peace talks proposed by world powers, and that nobody in Syria would accept such talks, in an interview transcript published by state … Continue reading So we’re all in agreement then?

Moscow is reportedly stunned that its mission to do...um...well, whatever it's doing in Syria, which...well, anyway, Bloomberg is saying that, whatever Russia's mission in Syria is, its leaders were expecting to be done with it by now: U.S. President Barack Obama, facing criticism at home over his Islamic State strategy, is turning out to be … Continue reading Welcome to the party, Vlad