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At the Napoleon’s Egypt blog, Jaubert’s important letter critical of Napoleon Bonaparte’s use of the naval forces. It also contains the crucial passage, “You will laugh outright, perhaps you witlings of Paris, at the Mahometan proclamation to the Commander in Chief. He is proof, however, against all your raillery; and the thing itself will certainly […]

Alexandra Russell writes: This morning, the New York Times revealed that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is rushing through a plan to rewrite media ownership rules, letting the biggest media companies control even more local outlets. And he’s doing it without giving the public a chance to respond. The rules could take effect as early as […]

Barnett Rubin points in our Global Affairs group blog to the impact of the failures in Afghanistan, of the tribal turmoil in Waziristan, on the Karachi bombing at the center of Pakistani politics.

Manan Ahmed at our Global Affairs Blog points out that Karachi has now joined New York, Madrid and London as a site of a major terrorist attack. Late reports say 136 are dead and over 500 wounded in a bombing aimed at assassinating former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto on her return after years […]

Farideh Farhi weighs in on the significance of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Iran, and the frustrations his olive branch to Tehran produced in Bush (who went a little crazy, talking about World War III if Iran gained the knowledge of how to produce a nuclear weapon.) The USG Open Source Center translates from […]

My column in Salon.com, “The War Hawks,” is now online. Excerpt: ‘ Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton think a tough line on Tehran will sell politically. They could be right. Future historians may conclude that the key issue in the 2008 presidential campaign was not Iraq, but whether the United States should go to war […]

The NYT has been pushing the story that the Israeli air strike on Syria on September 6 came in response to intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear reactor at the site with clandestine North Korean help. There are reasons to question the accuracy of the Israeli story, which at some points has included allegations […]

Courtesy R. J. Eidelson at YouTube.

The USG Open Source Center summarizes the statements of Lebanese Shiite leader Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah concerning what he sees as an American push to set Arab countries against Iran. Round-up of Middle East Friday Sermons 5 OctMiddle East — OSC SummarySunday, October 7, 2007 . . . At 0738 GMT, the news agency carries a […]