Lebanon took another step toward getting a new president over the weekend. After initially appearing oddly non-committal about his candidacy, Hezbollah--via its leader, Hassan Nasrallah--announced on Sunday that its members of parliament would vote for Michel Aoun in a presidential election that is likely to take place next Monday. Hezbollah and Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement … Continue reading “President Aoun” is looking more likely

Last month, an investigative organization called The Sentry published a report showing that the nearly three year long civil war in South Sudan has been, among other things, a cover for the looting of the country by two "kleptocratic networks"--one headed by South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and the other by his former VP and … Continue reading South Sudan’s civil war has been very profitable, and it may be turning even uglier

It's not often you hear about a former emir dying, because most emirs only become former emirs upon their death. But Khalifa b. Hamad Al Thani, the former Emir of Qatar and the grandfather of the current emir, Tamim b. Hamad Al Thani, had kind of an unusual regal experience, all things considered. And since … Continue reading Khalifa b. Hamad Al Thani (1932-2016)

I have a new piece up at LobeLog on the Trump phenomenon and its ties with the wave of right-wing, populist-based Islamophobia we've seen growing throughout Europe and in the US. Research does show a correlation between increases in anti-Muslim incidents and the 2016 campaign: This uptick in anti-Muslim activity seems to correlate with the … Continue reading Trump and Islamophobia

Burundi officially divested itself of the International Criminal Court earlier this week, raising fears that other nations might follow suit. Well, sure enough, today this happened: South Africa became on Friday the second African country to announce that it planned to leave the International Criminal Court, a decision that campaigners for international justice say could … Continue reading African countries have started ditching the ICC

So I'm seeing an increasing amount of chatter on the Twitter that none other than Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself has been trapped in Mosul and is perhaps not long for this world. And while I agree that this would be a hilarious rebuttal to Donald Trump's barely coherent debate rant about how come we don't … Continue reading Where in the World Is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

As you may know, Lebanon has been functioning without a president for over two years now. If this seems odd, well, it is, but more in a "why" sense than a "how" sense. The "how" is actually fairly simple; the Lebanese president is elected by parliament, and the Lebanese parliament requires a 2/3 quorum in … Continue reading Is Michel Aoun your next President of Lebanon?

I have very little interest in watching a Fox News personality tongue-bathe the most absurd presidential candidate this country has ever seen, so I may be skipping tonight's debate. On the other hand, there's a very good chance that a whole lot of Iranians will be seeing it, and frankly I think this is entirely … Continue reading It’s Trump Time in Tehran

Unfortunately today kind of got away from me. I had a medical checkup in the morning but then I was asked on short notice to do an interview for a Libyan TV program on location in downtown DC, and it turns out that shooting on location is a lot harder than doing it in a … Continue reading Title Copied

Hey, how's it going? I don't want to generalize, but I would imagine that most of you reading this had a better weekend than ISIS did. I know I did, and I spent the weekend mostly in bed with a fever. In Delaware. Which is no knock on Delaware; I didn't see much of it … Continue reading Quite the weekend