Post Pic

Response to Ron Paul: Did U.S. Policy Make Today’s Islamist Iran Hate America?

Presidential candidate Ron Paul has said repeatedly that Iranians hate America because of its role in the 1953 coup overthrowing Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh… Continue reading

Post Pic

Ankara and Baghdad: A Parting of Ways?

Until now, Turkey’s presence in Iraq has generally been encouraged by all major Iraqi groups… Continue reading

Post Pic

Why We Should End Our Relationship With Pakistan

As Pakistanis burned American flags and the Washington Post wrote of “a new normal” in US-Pakistani relations earlier this month, it looked like the beginning of the end of five decades of friendly alliance between the two countries… Continue reading

Post Pic

Assad contains Syrian uprising for now, with help of Russia, Iran and Hizballah

Ten months after the Syrian people launched an uprising against its ruler, Bashar Assad has recovered the bulk of his army’s support and his grip on most parts of the country… Continue reading

Post Pic

Prison for Journalists: Wave of Journalists’ Arrests in Iran

Iranian reformist opposition and human rights sources have reported a wave of arrests of journalists and social media activists… Continue reading

Post Pic

Closer Ties or Further Diplomatic Tension between Israel and Ireland?

The Knesset speaker’s visit to Ireland, Irish F.M. Eamon Gilmore’s visit to Gaza, and the looming visit of an anti-Israeli Irish President… Continue reading

Post Pic

Why Syria’s Regime is Surviving a Revolution

Despite what is now the longest-running revolution in Middle Eastern history, the Syrian regime will probably be in power on December 31, 2012… Continue reading

Post Pic

How Much Security Will NATO’s Missile Defense Shield Provide for Turkey?

By agreeing to deploy the Army Navy Transportable Radar Surveillance System (AN/TPY-2) on Turkish soil, the United States and Turkey have concluded by far the strategically most significant agreement in many years… Continue reading

Post Pic

Saudi Air Force to Outnumber, Outclass and Outgun Israel’s Advanced US Jet Fleet

With its latest acquisitions from Washington and Europe, the Saudi Air Force will have more fighter-bombers of more advanced models that the Israeli Air Force… Continue reading

Post Pic

Security and Defense: Israel is not About to Attack Iran and Neither is the United States

The radio superhero, The Shadow, had the power to “cloud men’s minds.” But nothing clouds men’s minds like anything that has to do with Jews or Israel… Continue reading

Post Pic

Obama’s State of the Union Speech: My Response Discovers Some Curious Insights and Strange Formulations

In his State of the Union message, President Barack Obama began by wrapping himself in the flag, patriotism, and love of the armed forces while trying to highlight his foreign policy achievements… Continue reading

Post Pic

America and the Arab Spring

A year ago this week, on January 25, 2011, the ground began to crumble under then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s feet… Continue reading

Post Pic

Azerbaijan foils Iranian-Hizballah terror strike against Jewish targets

A Hizballah cell backed by intelligence from Tehran and external Iranian terror cells in Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia and Armenia, was captured in Baku on Jan. 19 by… Continue reading

Post Pic

Where the “Counter-Obama” View of the Middle East is Right and Where It’s Wrong

Diehl’s challenge to the critics of the mainstream thinking on the Middle East is very serious… Continue reading

Post Pic

The Unvarnished Reality of Contemporary U.S.-Israel Relations

Do not speak of it in public. Do not expect any Israeli official to admit it. But Israel is facing an issue unlike anything it has had to deal with during the past 50 years… Continue reading

Post Pic

Gold for Oil: India to Pay Gold instead of Dollars for Iranian Oil

India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar… Continue reading

Post Pic

Islamist Parties Dominate Egypt’s Parliament

We’re starting to get a good picture of what the lower house of Egypt’s parliament will be like… Continue reading

Post Pic

USS Abraham Lincoln Transits Hormuz; USS Enterprise to Transit Hormuz in March

Three weeks after Tehran threatened action against any US aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz… Continue reading

Post Pic

American Culture Icon Banned from Sale: The End of Barbie in Iran?

The growing criticism of Barbie’s harmful influence on the consumption culture of young Iranians, the purchase of Barbie dolls triggers a psychological change in children and increases the influence of values that go against the values of Iranian-Islamic culture… Continue reading

Post Pic

Iran: In another blow to his status, Rafsanjani loses control of Iran’s largest university

Only two weeks after his website was blocked by the authorities and his daughter was sentenced to six months in prison and banned from any public activity for five years… Continue reading

Post Pic

Are You Left-Wing or Right-Wing? Hopefully, I’m Honest-and-Accurate Wing

I ran into an older, retired Israeli colleague who is a fine scholar in his field and agreed to have coffee in a nearby Tel Aviv cafe. In the ensuing conversation I learned some key things about why current intellectual and political discussion is such a wreck… Continue reading

Post Pic

Arabism Is Dead! Long Live…?

Many of the arguments and assumptions that governed the Arabic-speaking world for six decades have simply vanished… Continue reading

Post Pic

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Strike Oil

The IRGC’s seizure of the Oil Ministry could have far reaching economic, political, and strategic implications… Continue reading

Post Pic

Mainstreaming anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism may not yet be a litmus test for social acceptability in the US, but it has certainly become acceptable… Continue reading