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

I kind of let this slip through the cracks (because, hey, it's just me around here), but the Iran deal took another step toward full implementation in the past couple of weeks, when the International Atomic Energy Agency issued its "Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran’s Nuclear Programme." As the title … Continue reading Iran nuclear deal takes another step forward

Vladimir Putin used the words "nuclear" and "warhead" in a conversation about Russia's military action in Syria yesterday, and so that created a bit of a stir on the internet tubes. For example, here's Fox News's level-headed take: For balance, here's the equally fair-minded RT: And from The Hill: Also this, from The Independent (in … Continue reading I’m pretty sure Russia is not planning on nuking ISIS

On Tuesday, leaders from most of the Syrian rebel groups--excluding ISIS, which isn't really a "rebel" group per se, and the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra--got together in Riyadh for a set of Saudi-led talks aimed at bringing them together in a common bloc ahead of peace talks with Bashar al-Assad's government. This was supposed to … Continue reading Hey, that went well

Over the past couple of days, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has been ratcheting up the war of words between Ankara and Moscow over that Russian aircraft that got shot down by Turkey a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday, in what I can only assume was an appeal to Vladimir Putin's innate sense of fairness, … Continue reading Now this is just getting silly

I know I'm supposed to have a Take on big news, especially when it relates to foreign affairs, terrorism, and politics, but I have to say that I've got nothing when it comes to Donald Trump's latest garbage. It's far too late in the process to say that Trump is a joke candidate, but he … Continue reading All Trumped out

My newest piece for LobeLog (co-authored with Jim Lobe) highlights a recent poll of US opinion on Israel and the Israel-Palestine issue, conducted by University of Maryland and Brookings scholar Shibley Telhami. Telhami's survey used two samples: one to represent the general public, and then an over-sample of self-professed evangelical Christians, in order to gauge … Continue reading Netanyahu and his American evangelical fans