Antipathy between Sunni and Shi’a radicals in and around the Syrian cauldron is growing rapidly, lately manifested in the battle of the shrines—wherein Sunnis destroy Shi’a holy sites (most recently one not too far from Damascus) and proudly disinter centuries-dead bodies (or the dust thought to have once been bodies), and the Iranian regime threatens […]

It’s no fun blogging at moving targets.Since I tried on May 8 to make the simple point that Gregory Hicks’s testimony was being used for partisan purposes, and hence deflected attention from the Obama Administration’s real, seminal errors on Libya—which date to March 2011, not September 2012—some interesting developments have taken place.It is now clear, for example, […]

Secretary Kerry’s announcement of a peace conference on Syria only ten days ago has been met with a series of remarkable provocations from the Russians: First, they refused to halt the sale of a sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons system to Assad, one which would make the imposition of a no-fly zone more difficult. Second, they expelled […]

Qatar, the small but wealthy Gulf emirate, has seen a major political opportunity in the collapse of the old regimes in the Arab world and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is “punching above its weight” at the moment, but it has attracted unfavorable attention from Saudi Arabia—and concern from the West, where Qatar […]

Pretty much everybody understands at some level that the question of jobs is at the heart of America’s politics today. An old world of stable, reasonably well paid jobs in manufacturing (stuff processing) and in corporate or government bureaucracies (information processing) is passing away. What comes next is up in the air, but as things […]

If you want to understand why people are so down on the American biofuel industry, look no further than the ethanol trade relationship between Brazil and the United States. Last year, the US imported 9.6 million barrels of ethanol from Brazil. And yet Brazil imported 2 million barrels from the US.How does that happen, you […]

…make it this excellent and refreshingly evenhanded New Yorker piece by Nathan Heller. It traces the rise of MOOCs at Harvard while carefully examining their many pros and cons, how they fit into the broader higher ed landscape, the roots of cost inflation in the education sector, and much else besides.It’s hard to recommend the multifaceted piece […]

World-renowned music moguls and entrepreneurs Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are getting into another business: higher education. The rapper and producer made a $70 million donation to the University of Southern California to create a degree “that blends business, marketing, product development, design and liberal arts.” The New York Times reports: The details of the four-year program, officially […]

Nawaz Sharif is back. And back with a big enough chunk of parliament that he won’t have to form a coalition government. After a record number of Pakistanis showed up at the polls and dumped the delinquent Pakistan People’s Party out of power, many Pakistanis have rejoiced with hope that their country is on the brink of a new […]

A new Gallup poll reveals small business owners as wary about the Affordable Care Act. Forty-eight percent of the 603 small business respondents think that Obamacare will be “bad for [their] business.” Fifty-two percent said the ACA will reduce the quality of the healthcare they and their employees receive, while 55 percent believe the ACA […]