My project to review Juan Cole’s Engaging the Muslim World chapter by chapter is dragging on longer than I thought it would, but I hate leaving things unfinished, and so I soldier on. The fifth chapter, “Pakistan and Afghanistan: Beyond the Taliban,” is the one most outside of my expertise, for while I did [...]
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On August 19, 2009 twin bombings occurred at Iraq’s Foreign and Finance Ministries. Three days later, the Baghdad Operations Command announced that it had arrested a suspect, and his taped confession was later played on television. He said he was a Baathist and former policeman who put together one of the truck bombs in [...] Despite President Bush’s post-9/11, manichean-tinged attempt to categorize other nations as either “with us or against us” with respect to those terrorist groups that the US government considers problematic, and despite an understandable impulse on the part of the US government to put US interests ahead of those of other states (a tendency that spans administrations from [...] One of the unfortunate side-effects of the overhyping of the “success” of The Surge in Iraq, and the counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine that supposedly facilitated that success, has been the belief that we can fix what ails our effort in Afghanistan by replicating that approach: applying COIN doctrine coupled with a troop surge. What gets left out of this can-do-COIN [...] Much of the coverage has shifted to trials of reformist leaders and Ahmadinejad’s government, but it’s worth remembering that protests are continuing in Iran: “Opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi has called for continued protests over Iran’s disputed June election, two days after MPs backed most of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s new government ministers. “Musavi, remaining [...] Widely quotes Iraq expert Reidar Visser is now blogging at Iraq and Gulf Analysis. Here’s a sample: “An even clearer indication of this approach was recently highlighted by the Tawafuq politician Nur al-Din al-Hayali, whose National United Trend has stated it will fight the elections as an independent entity in three governorates – Baghdad, [...] |
Blake Hounshell (aka praktike), our co-founder and main man, is managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He's now reporting on the Egyptian Revolution from Cairo. 
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