Apparent Israeli election winner Benjamin Netanyahu has until midnight tonight to cobble together a 61 seat majority in the Knesset before Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has to give somebody else a crack at the job. It appears that he's scrambling to meet the deadline: Mr. Netanyahu, who exulted in what looked like a strong mandate … Continue reading Bibi-sitter hanging on by the skin of his teeth

Back in 2011, social scientist Steven Pinker wrote a book called The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, wherein he argued that we're living in the most peaceful time in human history thanks to humanity's general embrace of a more empathetic, reason-centric, moral view of the world. He won a lot of … Continue reading New evidence that violence, or at least its impact, isn’t declining

The thing about Lindsey Graham is that he's normally dumb enough that when he says a thing that could either be a bad joke or something extra dumb, you're never sure which way to go with it. So it is with this gem of a quote: "Everything that starts with 'Al' in the Middle East … Continue reading “…and then there’s, um, alcohol, and algorithms, and Al Gore, and…”

A Tunisian journalist named Asma Ghribi writes about recent developments there over at Foreign Policy: On April 8, the Council of Ministers approved a controversial new draft law that would grant additional powers and protections to the military, internal security forces, and the customs service — and curb constitutionally granted civil liberties. The law has … Continue reading Not a good sign

You may remember several months back, when there was a popular uprising in Burkina Faso over then-president Blaise Compaoré's decision to try to buy himself another term in office despite the fact that he'd already served 27 years of a maximum 10 year presidency. Due in large part to public outcry, Compaoré was removed from … Continue reading In Burundi, another president tries to overstay his welcome

In case you haven't heard, two gunmen, at least one of whom is alleged to have been a man with serious jihadi inclinations, were killed by police last night as they attempted to attack a "Muhammad Art Exhibit" event in Garland Texas, sponsored by something called the American Freedom Defense Initiative. AFDI is one of … Continue reading Feeding the extremism industry

I don't want to convey the impression that I have literally had nothing to say about Freddie Gray's death (murder, really, though maybe it's premature to call it that) and the subsequent protests/riots that have gripped Baltimore because I don't care about that story. I simply can't figure out what to say about this case, … Continue reading A good place to start

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is on a bit of a US diplomacy tour as the talks over a nuclear deal enter what is presumably their home stretch. Ten days ago he wrote an editorial for The New York Times, in which he expressed Iran's desire for intra-regional dialogue on matters of security and diplomacy: … Continue reading How, and how not, to talk about important stuff

Maryam Rajavi's testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade went exactly as expected: Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian dissidents organization Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), a group that until 2012 was list on the State Department’s terror list, insisted Tehran was the root of the Islamic State’s power. In prepared testimony, … Continue reading According to the script

Josh Keating suggests another motivation behind today's big Saudi royal news, one I didn't consider in my rambling 1 AM diatribe on the subject: Still, this is change in a place where there is often none. In addition to injecting some young blood into the kingdom’s creaky gerontocracy, the moves were likely also made with … Continue reading An ancillary benefit