Khshayarsha Who?

This blog is entitled “The Middle East and Beyond” for a fairly obvious practical reason: It enables me to discuss subjects far and wide, since the word “beyond” can mean practically anything I want it to. I intend to limit myself geographically, however, to the Middle East, North Africa and the geopolitical peripheries of both. […]

The Never-Ending Consequences of Libya

Today’s local prestige newspaper, the Washington Post, brings two items on Libya, one a short news clip and the other a column by a well-known commentator—in this case, David Ignatius. Taken together, the two items furnish further evidence that all is not well either in Libya or in parts of the western Sahel as a […]

A Conversation with Steven A. Cook

The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square by Steven A. Cook Oxford University Press, 2011, 424 pp., $27.95 Adam Garfinkle: Your new book on Egypt certainly is timely, but we both know that the lead-time to produce a book of this kind, one with history, with real substantive analysis, is quite long. I […]

Not the Best of All Possible Worlds

I did not head off to work today meaning to write again about Syria, but some things just can’t be helped. I was launched into my current orbit by a remark in today’s Washington Post. Not coincidentally, perhaps, it was a sentence written in that telltale sign of basic journalistic fraud: weasely, evasive language that […]

A Hegelian Moment in the Middle East

Update: Today, April 6, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad declared an independent state in northern Mali, the first assertion of Tuareg control of Timbuktu, their old capital, since 1591.What do you think of when you see or hear the word “Tuareg”? Most Americans, I think, are left utterly blank by the sight […]

History, Journalism and the Repetition of Error

There is an old adage which states that history is written by the winners. No doubt this is generally true, and the unstated premise of this adage certainly makes logical sense: Those who die in a failed military campaign, after all, are not going to be writing anything. But sometimes history is not even written […]

Emotion and Meaning

When horrible things happen, like the terror attack on a Jewish school in southern France on Monday, our emotions churn and sometimes get the better of our capacity for reason. One commentator, an old friend who will remain nameless, blames the slimy subterranean anti-Semitism of contemporary Europe––much of the time masquerading in anti-Israel drag––for supplying […]

A Conversation with Robert S. Kaplan

AI: Let’s start with your book, What to Ask the Person in the Mirror: Critical Questions for Becoming a More Effective Leader and Reaching Your Potential (Harvard Business Review Press, 2007). There are a lot of books that fall into the category of high-level self-help for businessmen. What makes this one different?RSK: This is a […]

Libya, R.I.P. (1951–2012)

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 […]

The Wisdom of Sheikh Zubar

I had a friend some years ago, an Israeli (since deceased) of large appetites and an expansive sense of humor, who used to joke that Shakespeare was really an Arab: Sheikh Zubar. I remember one day at a hilltop park near his home in Haifa he acted out a very tall tale of Hamlet with […]

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