Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Robin Wright carves up the Middle East

Wright is wrong and her analysis risks looking prescriptive rather than descriptive

Was the coup in Egypt even necessary?

Morsi might have been forced from power anyway, but the military short circuited that

Draft articles of impeachment for Morsi now

Even elected leaders can lose their legitimacy; Egypt needs a legal statement to that effect


Sanity on immigration policy, near at last

Republicans still hate Hispanic cultural influence but they’re relenting on immigration policy

Video drones over Taksim Square in Istanbul

When the police control the streets, video drones can see what they are up to

Where you can ignore the US ambassador

What presidential donors have to give to get a vacation spot ambassadorship


Egypt Independent is strangled in its crib

Independent journalism is a bad business everywhere but in Egypt politics makes it worse

How great is India’s magazine The Caravan?

Long form reportage, ruthlessly edited, about India and elsewhere. Now you know

The Yugoslav war reappears in Syria

War never ends: it breeds skills that just get applied to perpetrating bad deeds later on


Israel, Prisoner X, and widely known secrets

Israeli denials about the anonymous prisoner who committed ‘suicide’ confirm how valuable he was

The Aldo Moro assassination, Reggio-Emilia, Italy, 1978

A prized book of Italian newspapers and a dead terrorist; is there a connection?

My twenty years in Egypt

My first trip to Cairo was in 1992. Here are some thoughts on how it has changed


On Egypt’s constitutional referendum

The Muslim Brotherhood has changed its political strategy, a loss for everyone

Bal Thackeray dying in India, violence expected

Of course it is: violence is the Shiv Sena default reaction to anything they don’t like

What is racist about Romney’s 47 percent claim?

The late Lee Atwater makes it clear: Romney’s 47 percent drives racists closer to rich white people


A stars-aligning moment to pass immigration reform

For the first time, Republicans need immigration reform as much as Democrats have always wanted it

What Obama lost in this campaign

Even with victory, Obama missed the chance to engineer a realignment of the US electorate

Rendition and torture: how it happened

Everyone knows by now that the US and UK tortured captives. That should still shock us


Car bomb in Beirut, invisible map revealed

Even in peacetime, every Beiruti knows which sect ‘owns’ each district

New York Times op-ed on Syria is wrong about the Obama doctrine

How not to make the case for US intervention in Syria

The embassy mobs and Obama’s ‘failure’ in the Middle East

Is Obama’s policy in the Middle East in ‘epic collapse’? Hardly. But serious people have doubts now


Latest in the battle over the Mohamed Mahmoud mural

The New York Times blog The Lede picks up the battle over street art in Cairo

The amazing mural on Mohamed Mahmoud that was just painted over

What a loss for Cairo, artistically as much as politically

How the US is playing into the hands of the Salafiyeen

The US just told the Salafiyeen they have the power to affect aid talks. Big mistake