Juan Cole offers some predictions: 2013 will see Iranian influence in the Middle East continue a decline that began with the Arab upheavals of 2011. Iran’s two major allies in the Arab world are Syria and Lebanon. In Lebanon, Iran arms the Shiite party-militia Hizbullah, and does so overland through Iraq and Syria. Since Israel…
Showing all posts tagged Syria
This is not the Syria your mainstream media outlet is selling you
The intrepid Patrick Cockburn, one of the finest reporters around, travels to Syria and offers an alternative view in The Independent: It is one of the most horrifying videos of the war in Syria. It shows two men being beheaded by Syrian rebels, one of them by a child. He hacks with a machete at…
The Islamist revolution is here; are we ready and even willing?
The grand sweep of history after the Arab Spring is yet to be written; it remains a work in progress. But this piece, by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in the New York Review of Books, is a stunner, riffing on the prospects of an Islamist phase, what this means for democracy, Arabs in general…
What war feels like in Damascus
Understanding life in Damascus today is difficult. It’s a rare journalist who captures the mood.… Janine di Giovanni (who’s reported from the country before) has a new and devastating dispatch in the New York Times: Rifa was growing frantic. Her husband had called to say that he and her brother were stuck on their way home…
America is blind in Syria
The lead story in today’s New York Times is comical. Almost. What’s clear is how little Washington understands the Syrian revolution, who is fighting and why. Its intelligence is clearly suspect and hardline Islamists are being strengthened. America learns nothing from history.… Afghanistan in the 1980s, anybody? Most of the arms shipped at the behest of… Saudi…
Understanding the Alawites in Syria
Nir Rosen, one of America’s finest independent journalists, has spent much of this year travelling around Syria. His latest dispatch is published in the London Review of Books: Syria’s Alawite heartland is defined by its funerals. In Qirdaha in the mountainous Latakia province, hometown of the Assad dynasty, I watched as two police motorcycles drove…
In the Syrian civil war, America and jihadis are on the same side
Yet more spectacular reporting from Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (the man has form) from the Syrian city of Aleppo (via the Guardian): Soldiers! Soldiers!” The man hissed his warning as he hurried past, two bullets from a government sniper kicking up dust from the dirt road behind him. It was enough for Abu Omar al-Chechen. His ragtag…
Here’s the Australian Parliament’s leading Zionist advocate
Melbourne Labor MP Michael Danby said the following in parliament this week: Mr DANBY (Melbourne Ports) (13:49):… On Monday and Tuesday I had leave for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. I thank the whips and the parliament. For 120,000 Australians of similar background, even the most secular families, this is like Christmas, a time…