Here at Via Meadia we’ve been skeptical that our recent trade of food aid for the end to a North Korean nuclear program was anything more than an old trick to extort concessions from America, but the Economist is more optimistic. Hailing the recent deal as a “breakthrough,” it notes that the recent succession has altered the […]

The Wall Street Journal is running a WRM piece on the continuing US role in the Middle East this morning; it’s been reprinted, without the paywall, by RealClearWorld. Writes WRM: The Middle East is on fire. As waves of populist, ethnic and religious unrest sweep the region, long-established regimes totter like ninepins, violent conflicts explode […]

According to the conventional wisdom, moderate Republican Senator Scott Brown was supposed to be toast in Massachusetts. After leftie Democratic hero and Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren entered the race riding a veritable tidal wave of favorable buzz and national publicity, the election had all but been called for her.There’s just one problem with this triumphalist […]

There has been an enormous amount of media and public attention on two young American athletes, rising stars in respectively football and basketball—Tim Tebow of the Denver Broncos and Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks. My knowledge of the two sports is roughly equivalent to my knowledge of nuclear physics, but I understand that […]

I wrote fairly recently a fourth update on Libya, thinking it would be the last update for a while. But having read this morning’s New York Times, I can’t resist a short comment. An article by Suliman Ali Alzawy and David D. Kirkpatrick reports that Libyans in the eastern province, centered on Benghazi, have declared […]

Germany has been pushing a fiscal treaty as the solution to the problems of the eurozone, but the pact, signed by European leaders at a summit in Brussels on March 2, is hitting roadblocks at every turn. First Francois Hollande announced he would trash this treaty if he were elected (something that looks likelier every day). Now, opposition […]

Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 6, 2012, 1 a.m.—A Saudi diplomat, returning from a jog, is shot dead by an unknown assailant. Karachi, Pakistan, May 2011—Two armed men kill a Saudi official. Pakistani police suggest a radical Shiite group is responsible. In October 2011, American officials uncovered a plot they say was organized by Iran and aimed […]

TAI print editor Adam Garfinkle has analyzed the Syrian puzzle and come up with a proposal: let the Turks enter Syria on a humanitarian mission, aimed at provoking a coup in Damascus that would send the Assads packing, followed by an international convention to organize a constitution for a new Syria.Otherwise, says Garfinkle, we are […]

Over at The New Republic, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy echoes Via Meadia‘s contention that the messy intervention in Libya hasn’t made the task of U.S. foreign policy makers any easier: As Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu meet today, the bitter lessons of the Libyan campaign will hover in the background. In light of the […]

Speaking before an AIPAC audience this week, President Obama cautioned against “loose talk of war.” It looks like Hamas didn’t get the memo; it has just added its voice to the hum of speculation about a strike against the Iranian nuclear program. According to The Guardian, the group says it will not support Iran militarily […]