I need your help to keep this blog going! Please read this and consider contributing something. Also, while you’re out there on the internet tubes, please consider liking this blog’s Facebook page and following me on Twitter! And please share my work with your friends/followers to help me grow the audience around here! Thank you! Since … Continue reading Hillary Clinton’s dangerous (?) Syria plan

I need your help to keep this blog going! Please read this and consider contributing something. Also, while you’re out there on the internet tubes, please consider liking this blog’s Facebook page and following me on Twitter! And please share my work with your friends/followers to help me grow the audience around here! Thank you! Folks, … Continue reading Good talk

Writing about the Middle East and Africa in the year 2016 unfortunately means writing about violence most of the time. You try to notice patterns in the violence or talk about the groups behind the violence and what their aims are, or how they could be stopped, or what the context of the violence is, … Continue reading Literally unspeakable

I need your help to keep this blog going! Please read this and consider contributing something. Also, while you’re out there on the internet tubes, please consider liking this blog’s Facebook page and following me on Twitter! And please share my work with your friends/followers to help me grow the audience around here! Thank you! The … Continue reading The anti-ISIS free-rider problem

ISIS is in Libya. This has been known for some time, but either its foothold there is actually getting stronger or the important Something Doers of the world are just starting to figure out what's happening. Either way, we're starting to talk about whether or not it's time to Do Something: An international coalition is … Continue reading Libya braces for more international military assistance

I need your help to keep this blog going! Please read this and consider contributing something. Also, while you’re out there on the internet tubes, please consider liking this blog’s Facebook page and following me on Twitter! And please share my work with your friends/followers to help me grow the audience around here! Thank you! Here's … Continue reading Forget it Jake, it’s the Iowa Caucus

Remember Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor who was pursuing an investigation related to the (allegedly Iranian-perpetrated) 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and turned up dead in a case of alleged suicide? And how his investigation was focused on former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and so there were a … Continue reading Who was paying Alberto Nisman, and why were they paying him?

Al-Monitor's Laura Rozen has more on the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee's decision to reverse course, somewhat, and attend peace talks in Geneva after all. It appears that the HNC's delegation is there with a pretty narrow mandate: “We have come to Geneva to seek relief for our people by insisting UN Security Council resolution … Continue reading Progress in Geneva, terror back home