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 […]

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 […]

The door on Haiti’s Villa d’Accueil (seat of the prime minister) revolves; the most recent temporary occupant was Prime Minister Garry Conille, who resigned on Feb. 23 after just four months in office. His resignation came as a result of a number of issues, as the New York Times reports: Months of tension had been building between […]

Will there ever be a TV show that portrays Christians as normal, decent, struggling and complicated human beings? Certainly not in ABC’s new line-up. Reviewing the premiere of “GCB” for the Washington Post, Elizabeth Tenety describes what passes today for serious, empathetic programming about people of faith: After mom Amanda Vaughn loses her Ponzi-scheming husband […]

The ice-cold relationship between Iraq and Saudi Arabia is showing some signs of thawing, according to this report by the Washington Post, which cited a series of developments: Saudi Arabia will restore diplomatic relations to Baghdad for the first time since 2003; Saudi officials last week welcomed a delegation of Iraqi lawmakers to its capital; Iraqi […]