report on Iran published last week by the respected think tank discussed the regional consequences of the unstable post invasion governance regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The result is not surprising but deserves reflection – Iran has superseded the US as the most influential power in the Middle East.
The report argues:
The United States, with [...]

Two quick points on what I have always thought was a good observation, first made by Yglesias and Rosenfeld nearly a year ago now.
First, the point that initial supporters of the war are more likely to place blame for the current predicament on the war’s conduct rather than on a revision [...]

Michael J. Totten, guest blogging for Sullivan, points to what has always been relatively intuitive but was once considered heretical.

Those inside and outside Israel who believed disarming Hezbollah by force was possible in a short time frame were supremely delusional. It’s not 1967 anymore, when Israel could defeat three Arab armies in six days. Hezbollah [...]

While I am in theory sympathetic to the use of the core principles present in most stable democracies (such as the rule of law, free press, protection of human rights, universal suffrage, etc) as a desired goal for potential middle eastern reform, I am highly suspicious of it being used as an unqualified meta-narrative [...]

This curiously fascinating piece of personal Presidential information was in the U.S. News & World Report:
Maybe it was the influence of his wife, Laura, a former librarian, or his mother, Barbara, a longtime promoter of literacy. Or perhaps he was just eager to dispel his image as an intellectual lightweight. But President Bush now wants [...]

Perhaps it’s appropriate for my first ‘official’ Oxblog post to flog an article out today. It’s in Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly and titled ‘Sense and Symbolism: Europe Takes On Human Security.’
Porter, I hope you are suitably tickled that it leads with a Churchill quote, “The human tragedy reaches its [...]

The results of the General Assembly straw poll are in.
1. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon
2. UN official Shashi Tharoor of India
3. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai
4. Jordan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Prince Zeid al-Hussein
5. Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, a former head of the UN disarmament department.
Of course, [...]

Returning to Northern Uganda for a moment, there is an interesting dilemma hidden in Erin’s account - one particularly poignant for liberal internationalists. By most accounts, the indictment of the LRA leadership was a positive international recognition of the war crimes that had for shamefully long gone unrecognised. However, since the indictments were [...]

Back during the UK mad cow scare I remember hearing people in the humanitarian demining world jokingly suggest using contaminated cattle to clear landmine fields. Well, all joking aside, check out this video of rats sniffing out mines in Mozambique. Incredible, and nothing to laugh at, given that in Cambodia for example, estimates [...]

Dems in ‘06/’08=? Weisberg says ‘72, Schmitt counters ‘74. Who knew the 70’s were back in fashion?

Avnery questions the results thus far of the following progression of Olmert’s purported strategic objectives: To destroy Hizbullah; To push Hizbullah away from the border; To kill Hassan Nasrallah; To return to the Israeli army the power of deterrence; Deploying an International Force along the border; “We shall create a new situation in [...]

Just received an email from a close friend, Erin Baines, who works in Northern Uganda on traditional justice as it relates to the re-integration of Lords Resistance Army combatants. Remarkable work in a conflict that Jan Egeland has called the “biggest, forgotten, neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today.”
There are several aspects of the [...]

In the interest of being prepared for David’s Sunday Morning Round-up, here is a quick look at what some of the Sunday regulars are saying in their pre Sunday show op-eds. Or, “What they are saying in print today that they will be saying on air tomorrow?”
Clift asks: ‘where’s Cheney?’
Kristol slams Rumsfeld’s and joins [...]

Oxford’s Avi Shlaim argues in the IHT that instead of comparisons the 1982 war:
the more instructive comparison is between the recent incursion and the strangely named Operation Grapes of Wrath, which the Labor prime minister Shimon Peres mounted in April 1996…
In both cases the main aim of the operation was to break Hezbollah - [...]

Lots of recent talk (again) about whether Iraq is a civil war. In part, fuelled by the following exchange (DoD link down):
Q: Is the country closer to a civil war?
SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I don’t know. You know, I thought about that last night, and just musing over the words, the phrase, and what [...]

This interesting quote was in Monday’s lead WaPo piece on the Middle East:
“It’s really a proxy war between the United States and Iran,” said David J. Rothkopf, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “Running the World,” a book on U.S. foreign policy. “When viewed in that context, it puts [...]