Three ways rebellious young people are still reshaping the Middle East.
Don’t Count Out the Arab Youth
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Nouri Al-Maliki
Who Won Iraq?
Iraq today is George W. Bush’s nightmare and Osama bin Laden’s wet dream.
The Real Causes of Iraq’s Problems
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki isn’t the only one responsible for Iraq’s woes — history, U.S. foreign policy, and meddling neighbors are also to blame.
Iraq Elections: No End to Violence
Iraq’s latest elections were relatively free and fair, but they won’t do much to resolve the country’s stark sectarian divides.
Iraq: Revisiting the Pottery Barn Rule
In Iraq, the U.S. broke a nation of human beings, and it owes them an apology–and restitution.
Breaking the Cycle of Counterinsurgency
This September marked a potential turning point in America’s long and seemingly bottomless appetite for war. The Obama administration made a pitch for U.S. military intervention against Syria, and the American public didn’t buy it. Across the country, people...
The Kurdish Moment: Opportunity and Peril
For almost a century, the Kurds—one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without its own state—have been deceived and double-crossed, their language and culture suppressed, their villages burned and bombed, and their people scattered. But because of the U.S. invasion...
Trouble on the Other Side of the Euphrates
Spurred on by the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi civilians each month this year, and by persistent complains about the government’s poor performance and rising authoritarianism, Iraqi demonstrators are now taking matters into their own hands. With ever louder chants of effective governance from certain sectors of the country, what Iraq may be going through is its own version of the Arab Spring movement—smaller and less universal, but equally empowering to those who are in the middle of it.
Torture: An All-American Nightmare
Don’t for a second think that the essence of torture is physical pain, no matter what the new film Zero Dark Thirty implies. If, in many cases, the body heals, mental wounds are a far more difficult matter. Memory persists. After the fact, torture can only be dealt with by staring directly into the nightmare that changed us — that, like it or not, helped make us who we now are.
Christmas in Lebanon
A Lebanese Alawite family sits in their living room by a Christmas tree. The Alawite sect is a branch of Shi’a Islam found mostly in Syria. When asked about their Christmas tree, they replied “We obviously don’t believe in the same Christmas story, but its a fun holiday. Nice for the kids.”