My column in Salon.com, “The GOP’s Iran option is off the table.” The subhead is: “Rudy Giuliani was counting on Iran as a weapon of mass distraction in the ’08 race. But the flailing Republican right has just been disarmed.” Excerpt: ‘ Republicans have used the alleged nuclear threat posed by Iran to scare the […]
Giuliani, Reagan, and Kissing up to Ayatollahs with fancy Cakes
I just saw this campaign ad for Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. He says that Iran held US embassy hostages for 444 days. Then they were released within one hour. That was the hour after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president, succeeding Jimmy Carter. Giuliani goes on to tell us that this incident shows how you […]
Muqtada al-Sadr Regroups Sadrists Condemn al-Hakim’s Visit to Washington Mortars hit Prison
Sam Dagher of the Christian Science Monitor is a good reason to subscribe to CSM. He reports on the way Muqtada al-Sadr is using his ‘freeze’ on Mahdi Army activities to organize cadres and turn his organization into something like Hizbullah in Lebanon. Dagher also provides the most connected and detailed count I have seen […]
Police Chief of Hilla Killed; And, 40 Women Killed in Basra
Guerrillas deployed a roadside bomb to kill the police chief of Hilla, a largely Shiite city south of Baghdad. AP reports that “Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against “violating Islamic teachings […]
Oprah and Obama: Irony of the Week
The irony of the week is that Oprah Winfrey has come out strongly for Barack Obama as president. Why is that ironic? Because the subtext of Oprah’s television show is that men are unreliable and women have to stick together. So she supports a man for president in preference to another woman. I like Obama […]
Napoleon’s Scientists and the Pyramids
At the NYT, Katherine Bouton reviews Nina Burleigh’s new book, “Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt,” which I’m eager to see. In the course of the review, she writes of the French invasion of Egypt in 1798: ‘ Some historians see this venture as an exploratory expedition gone wrong. Others, including the historian […]
Guerrilla War 3.0 in Iraq; Attacks in Bayji, Yusufiya, Elsewhere, Kill 32, Wound Dozens; Dulaimi’s Sunnis Unlikely to Rejoin Government
Guerrillas differ from conventional armies in that they typically avoid direct, conventional engagements on the battlefield. They melt away before a conventional army’s advance, and then reemerge to engage in sniping, sneak attacks, and bombings from an unexpected quarter. The advantage of Fred Kagan’s troop escalation or “surge” is that it allowed a tamping down […]
US Deploys Pakistani Insurgents against Al-Qaeda
The USG Open Source Center translates an article from an opposition Afghanistan newspaper alleging that Washington it deploying Pakistani tribal levies against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. ‘USA trying to use Pakistani insurgents against Al-Qa’idah – Afghan paperCheragh (Light)Saturday, December 8, 2007Document Type: OSC Translated Excerpt USA trying to use Pakistani insurgents against Al-Qa’idah – Afghan […]
Bombings in Diyala Kill over Two Dozen
Bombings were back on the front page in Iraq on Saturday, with significant attacks carried out on Thursday evening and Friday. At Muqdadiya in Diyala province, a female suicide bomber blew up a meeting of the local ‘Awakening Council’ or tribal levies willing to ally with the Americans against the radical Islamic State of Iraq. […]
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