... opposition groups: not just the fact that they suffered from horrific internal dissension, but that there were far too many radical Islamists mixed in liberally with so-called “moderate Arabs”. Because of the torturous hell that was the Chechen ... ... authoritarian stability over democratic instability when it comes to areas infected by such radicalism. This is especially so in the Middle East, which Russia considers close enough to be a near backyard and too close to its own southern flank. And so here we sit with Russia as the new Chair of the Security Council. Ideally, this should lead to continuous engagement and new opportunities to establish dialogue and cooperative ...
Media outlets and government circles both cringe and squirm when the subject of Westerners leaving the West to go fight in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State arises. While acquiring data and calculating accurate numbers wildly diverges from source to source, there is no doubt that ANY number simply makes countries like the United States uncomfortable and perplexed: in short, how could anyone want to leave the land of the free, the tolerant, the open, the just and go fight for a group that represents...
... drone fleet. Keep in mind blowback comes in forms other than just anger over actual attacks. There is growing dissent across the Middle East at what is perceived to be a total lack of transparency and scrutiny by the American public over its government’s ... ... unworthy of having the same advanced weapons. How does any country not feel that the U.S. is purposely compromising its own security and risking the lives of its people? Indeed, less than a year after the announcement of the China-Pakistan deal, the ...
So the United States Senate has released its report highlighting extreme and supposedly ‘abhorrent’ techniques used on terrorist targets after 9/11 to glean greater intelligence and information. Since that release there has been an orgy of oscillating condemnation/hand-wringing with rationalization/chest-beating, depending on whom you speak with. What strikes me more is the whole surreal ridiculousness of this false debate.
I say false debate because in some ways this just highlights...
... accusations are not completely baseless. Iran has a long history of generating support for whatever groups it can find across the Middle East, especially if those groups might share a particular hatred for Israel. Saudi Arabia has actually always supported ... ... emergence in the Gulf would most certainly be considered anathema to the Saudis and a potential danger to their sovereign national security interests in the Gulf and beyond. So while it is undoubtedly at least partially true that Iran has been quietly trying ...
... on television you would think Iraq has already fallen completely into the hands of a radical Islamist terrorist group called ISIS. While it is true the military and strategic... ... accounted for more by the absence of diligence on the part of Western analysts covering the Middle East than by any miraculous strength of force on the part of ISIS. The ISIS movement... ... foreign-policy strategy in the region but also perhaps as a direct threat to its own national security goals, given the open declarations from ISIS that it wants to create something...
