The Pentagon looks toward the Enemy of the Future, which is obviously crowds of unhappy protesters: A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is … Continue reading I’m sure this is a Good Thing

I really wasn't going to read that thing, but I had to see if Zack Beauchamp's tweet was accurate: Apparently Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan seem to think ISIS winning would be a victory for *al-Qaeda* http://t.co/Aknr7HbbHE — Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) June 17, 2014 ...and it is. It so very, very much is. This path … Continue reading I wasted my beautiful mind

Our top thinkers are thinking top thoughts (via): I don't know, though; I'm more of a fan of their older material.

Is Rasmussen even pretending to be anything other than a glorified push polling outfit anymore? This seems like a pretty clear finding: by a hefty 14-point margin, Americans with an opinion want President Obama to order airstrikes on Iraq. But there are three reasons, broadly speaking, to be skeptical. First, the wording of the Rasmussen question … Continue reading Hack pollster writes hack poll, film at 11

While ISIS consolidates and extends its gains in Iraq, capturing the mostly Sunni (but also mostly Turkmen, not Arab) city of Tal Afar in the north and pushing toward Samarra, which is also mostly Sunni but is home to one of the holiest Imami Shiʿa shrines in the world, a considerable amount of discussion has … Continue reading ISIS’s success is more about Iraq than about the Iraqi army

National Review's Mario Loyola, who is such a Serious foreign policy thinker that he wants the US to just start bombing random stuff in Iran to "dissuade" its nuclear ambitions and thinks that destroying Iraq in the name of non-existent WMD was fine because, like, in some parallel reality Saddam might really have had a … Continue reading Neocon Fight Club super-mad that Obama lost Iraq or something

At this point, after it was caught completely unawares by ISIS's move against Mosul and on toward Baghdad and before that was totally surprised by Russia's move into Crimea, should we start being worried about the capabilities of the US intelligence community? That's the question Shane Harris is asking at Foreign Policy. The problem is … Continue reading Is there a problem in the US intelligence community?

Now we come to the subject of blame. Who lost Mosul? Naturally, this being a day ending in the letter "y," you've got the folks who are blaming Obama, because he's been "indifferent" to Iraq, and because he foolishly convinced Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to let American forces leave Iraq despite the fact that … Continue reading What’s happening in Iraq, part 2: whose fault is it?

Alright, so, Iraq. Hoo-boy. I briefly touched on this situation the other day, when my reserves of brain power were at a definite ebb, and, while I'm not sure they're in much better shape now, the situation in Iraq is spiraling out of control, and I wouldn't be very good at this foreign policy blogging … Continue reading Let’s try (and fail) to figure out what the hell is happening in Iraq, OK?

I don't really have the brain power left right now to write anything interesting about this, but there was absolutely huge news out of Iraq today when fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized control of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the capital of the northern Nineveh Province. The Iraqi government … Continue reading Iraq is falling apart, even more so than usual