The Wall Street Journal is reporting (behind a paywall; here's a summary) that Taliban commanders in Afghanistan are getting money and weapons from Iran. This is newsworthy in that, as has been pretty well-documented, after 9/11 Iran went to some effort to aid the US in taking down the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This appears to … Continue reading Iran and the Taliban: not-so-strange bedfellows

Here's a strange story. Just a couple of weeks ago, Jabhat al-Nusra's leader, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, told Al Jazeera and anybody listening that he and his men were not looking to cause trouble with religious minorities like the Alawites, as long as those minorities weren't looking to cause trouble with Nusra. Sure, Nusra has massacred … Continue reading Nusra’s moderate face

Nigeria's so-new-he-still-has-that-new-president-smell President Muhammadu Buhari reached a deal today with four of his neighbors -- Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Benin -- to create a multi-national military force tasked with putting Boko Haram out of everybody's misery. This is a good idea, at least in principle; Boko Haram may have its roots in northeast Nigeria, but … Continue reading Nigeria’s good idea, maybe

Yesterday the Guardian published a really interesting piece, by Spencer Ackerman, Shiv Malik, Ali Younes and Mustafa Khalili, on the degree to which ISIS's rise has really decimated Ayman al-Zawahiri's Al-Qaeda Central: According to Maqdisi, al-Qaida’s organisational structure has “collapsed”. Zawahiri, Maqdisi said, “operates solely based on allegiance. There is no organisational structure. There is … Continue reading Has ISIS all but buried Al-Qaeda?

"Free Jazz" pioneer Ornette Coleman died today at the age of 85. He was a true artistic revolutionary, and the accolades that are pouring out about him today are well-earned. If you're interested, I wrote about Coleman months ago when I covered The Shape of Jazz to Come for my Saturday jazz series, and I'll … Continue reading Ornette Coleman, 1930-2015

When groups like ISIS move into your neighborhood, the effects can last long after they leave in the form of the reprisal attack, the gift that keeps on giving: Members of the Yazidi community, one of the Iraqi minorities hardest hit by jihadist atrocities, killed 21 Sunni Arab villagers in a January revenge attack, Amnesty … Continue reading Second order crimes against humanity

One of the lesser-discussed obligations of NATO membership is that member states have agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense every year. The main reason why this is hardly ever mentioned is that, of NATO's 28 members, only maybe 3-4, max, are likely to meet that target in any given year. … Continue reading NATO’s slide into dependency, now in graph form

Via Wonkette, Right Wing Watch gives you Pat Robertson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeH0s3H68I The non-video version is that some lady named Jane wrote to Pat and asked him "what she should say to a coworker who asked her, 'Why did God allow my baby to die?'" And Pat knew just what to say to this grieving mother: "look, … Continue reading Pat Robertson making even less sense than usual

Almost as an afterthought, amidst this McClatchy piece warning of the imminent onset of the regions-wide Sunni-Shiʿa conflagration that's been imminent really since 1979 but never seems to get here, blog hero Kenneth Pollack explains the mindset of the Maximum Intervention crowd pretty succinctly: Some Iraq scholars argue that the country can be saved. Decentralization … Continue reading The Think Tank Man’s Burden