If U.S. is improving drone-strike accuracy in Pakistan, what happened on March 17 when 41, including women and children were killed?
Enhanced Drone-Strike Accuracy Makes Accidents Look That Much More Suspicious
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Middle East & North Africa
From Baghdad’s Own Tahrir Square to Mosul: The Friday of the Free
“Iraqis have broken the chains. But the world is silent and apparently deaf and blind. Where is the free Western press?”
Tunisian Jews Resist Pressure From Israel to Emigrate
For the most part untroubled by anti-semitism, Tunisian Jews have little interest in emigrating to Israel.
Postcard from…Libya
Sixty years after the conclusion of World War II in North Africa, destroyed European weaponry once again litters Libya’s coastal roads as the civil conflict there enters its second month. But Europeans are not fighting on the ground in the former Italian colony. Rather, their arms are. In Libyan hands, European-made arms are part of a proxy battle that demonstrates the unintended consequences of the international arms trade.
Robert Kaplan Continues to Flog His Tribal Ruler Meme With Gaddafi, Gbagbo and Saleh
You might think that the poor critical reception he received for his book about tribal politics would make Robert Kaplan think twice before resurrecting the “warrior” leitmotif in relation to Gaddafi, Gbagbo, and Saleh.
The No-Doctrine President
Zoologists get pretty excited when they discover an unusual animal. They happily devote many hours to the task of classifying the beast and, if it qualifies as a new species, giving it a name. A great deal of money and prestige rides on these scientific endeavors. The same applies to the political sphere, where new and unusual creatures frequently turn up. When it comes to Barack Obama, however, political zoologists remain undecided whether he is a new kind of political animal and if his foreign policy represents a unique departure from the same old, same old.
Confronting the Urge to Urge on the Libyan Intervention
Humanitarian intervention, as in Libya, will never work until a time of — gasp! — world government.
The UN and Saudi Women
As revolutions and reforms sweep the Arab world, Saudi women continue to push for their rights. Inspired by their sisters in Egypt and Tunisia, a national women’s movement called Saudi Women Revolution has coalesced with clear and wide-ranging demands. Chief among them is the ability to participate in the political process, including voting and running for election.
The Days of Anger: Humiliation, Fear and Dignity in the Middle East
It is not only the economy that fuels Arab protests, but justice, honor, and pride.
No Moral Consistency in Obama’s Middle East Policy
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and now Libya. In the last decade the U.S. military has fought Muslims across the Middle East (Iraq and Libya) and South Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan) for a number of reasons: national security, protection of vital interests such as oil supply, and humanitarian crises. Though our recent foray into Libya can be considered more nuanced than our earlier interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, our poorly defined words and actions have called into question our intent, with a mistrust of U.S. policy becoming a worldwide issue. In Libya, the U.S. lead role in the military intervention has proven that its advertised intentions and actions clash with reality on the ground.