Month: February 2006

A few days ago, I was at lunch with a colleague, an ex-military man, and the talk got to politics. I mentioned that the government was never going to voluntarily shrink in size; it would only collapse in on itself through bankruptcy. He said that he had a lot of respect for Paul Martin, Canada’s … Continue reading “The Fantasy of State Protection”

America and Iran: At the Brink of the Abyss Day after day, I get more and more appalled by the prospect of an imminent nuclear attack on Iran; not only because I was raised in Iran and I do not want to see my 2,500-year-old country be destroyed by nukes, but also because the aftermath … Continue reading “Backtalk, February 27, 2006”

WASHINGTON – Two days after the bombing of one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines in Iraq, analysts and officials here are holding their breath, desperately hoping that a rapid descent into a sectarian civil war in Iraq can still be avoided, if not reversed. While a Friday curfew and appeals for restraint by religious leaders … Continue reading “US Holds Its Breath in Aftermath of Mosque Bombing”

Fifty years ago today, Nikita Khrushchev gave his Secret Speech to the Closed Session of the Twentieth Party Congress in which he denounced Joseph Stalin. At that time, Khrushchev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held the most powerful political office in the world. The power that Stalin had accumulated … Continue reading “Lest We Forget”

The Greenies aren’t particularly upset with President Bush for launching – on false pretenses – an unauthorized war of aggression against Iraq three years ago. Nevertheless, the Greenies are extremely upset with Bush. Why? Well, for one thing, up until now, Bush hasn’t taken the threat of global warming seriously. Sir David King, her majesty’s … Continue reading “Placating the Greenies”

Hamas’ history is deeply intertwined with the last stretch of Arafat’s life and his sudden death. It was the disappearance of Arafat’s secret treasury (estimated between $700 million and $2 billion) that paved the way to Hamas’ recent victory in the Palestinian elections. Everybody remembers the Fatah leadership’s desperate, and eventually unsuccessful, attempt to gain … Continue reading “Handicapping Hamas”

It’s not easy to focus on a port deal when events in Iraq suggest the civil war that almost all realists had feared and that to some extent has been simmering just barely beneath the surface for months might have broken out in earnest. And the bombing of the Shia Askiriya shrine, also called the … Continue reading “War Complicates Everything”

It was inevitable that Arianna Huffington, "compassionate conservative"-turned-limousine-liberal, would join the bipartisan chorus of voices screaming bloody murder over the Dubai port deal. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that she was canoodling with Newt Gingrich and cavorting with the neocons. And if there’s anything the neocons hate, it’s those inherently violent and even … Continue reading “Arianna Huffington, Racial Profiler”

The riots in Pakistan are hardly news anymore: if they appear in the paper at all, it is on page C17, between a story on starvation in the Sudan and a report that Mrs. McGillicuty fell down the stairs. The riots continue nonetheless, seemingly unconcerned that the rest of the world is no longer watching. … Continue reading “Taking Pakistan’s Temperature”

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse – the al-Askariya shrine, the Golden Mosque of Samarra, one of Shia Islam’s most revered sites, was invaded by gunmen in police uniforms (possibly from Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia group, though no one has yet taken responsibility), bombed, and thoroughly desecrated, as photos make shockingly clear. Shia … Continue reading “How Costly Is Too Costly?”