Five years ago, Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vender with black curls, deep brown eyes, and chin fuzz, refused to pay a seven-dollar bribe, yet again, to a government inspector. For a man who supported his mother, five younger siblings, and an ailing uncle, seven dollars was a full day’s income—on a good day. This […]
An Islamic philosopher in Karachi, an ideologue who provides violent ideas to some of Pakistan’s fiercest extremist groups, once told me that there are two kinds of history: dead and living. “Dead history is something on a shelf or in a museum,” he said. “Living history is part of your consciousness, something in your blood […]
President Barack Obama wanted to show he was so serious about the threat posed by ISIL that he gave a speech from the Oval Office about it—standing up. But afterwards, America knows just about as much what he’s doing and what’s going on as it did before he scrambled Sunday’s prime time schedule with the ultimate […]
François Hollande’s declaration of war against Isis (also known as Islamic State) was, perhaps, a natural reaction to the carnage in Paris but the situation is now so grave that we cannot merely react; we also need sustained, informed and objective reflection. Read Here – New Statesman
The vacuums left by the United States have benefited the most violent and sectarian elements of the region, fueling civil conflict and allowing the Islamic State to expand its territorial reach. Although al Qaeda in Iraq was defeated, the failure to address the country’s underlying issues allowed IS — the son of AQI — to […]
When Defense Secretary Ash Carter took the reins of the Pentagon in February, he inherited a Pentagon coming out of two prolonged land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, navigating a budgetary drawdown threatened by sequestration, and wrestling with how to remain the dominant military in a fast-changing world. As one of his predecessors Robert Gates […]
One of Merkel’s great strengths is an unerring sense for political reality. As such, her comments at the town meeting early last week show that nobody knows better than Germany’s chancellor just how precarious the situation in the country has become. The influx of refugees continues unabated and Merkel’s public approval ratings continue to fall […]
It’s long been a mystery what President George H.W. Bush thought of President George W. Bush’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Iraq. Bush 41, of course, had stopped short of ousting Saddam Hussein; Bush 43 had gone ahead and done just that. But what was said behind closed doors […]
Saddam was a tyrant and an aggressor, but are Iraq and the region really better off without him? Consider just some of the consequences of the war that removed him. Read Here – The Atlantic
It was nearly dormant for months, but recent weeks have seen the return of Germany’s Islamophobic, anti-refugee Pegida movement. More confident and aggressive than ever, officials worry the hatred could spread to the mainstream. Read Here – Der Spiegel
looking beyond borders 