At least 116 were killed and 22 were wounded across Iraq: In Tuz Khormato, Shi’ite militiamen killed a Kurdish doctor. Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani urged security forces to contain the conflict that erupted between Kurdish Peshmerga and Shi’ite militiamen a few...
No Payoff for Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington to collect his payoff for being disgruntled over the agreement limiting Iran's nuclear program, which was signed by that country and the world's great powers. Although President Obama and Netanyahu seem to...
Is Putin Our Ally in Syria?
Among the presidential candidates of the Republican Party and their foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill the cry is almost universal: Barack Obama has no strategy for winning the war on ISIS. This criticism, however, sounds strange coming from a party that controls...
Stop Helping ISIS in Its War on the ‘Gray Zone’
What were Islamist terrorists trying to accomplish when they attacked Paris on Friday, killing over 120 French civilians? A growing number of analysts now agree with Juan Cole’s theory about the extremists’ strategy in France, which he raised after the the Charlie...
Paris and What Should Be Done
The horrific attacks in Paris on Friday have, predictably, led to much over-reaction and demands that we do more of the exact things that radicalize people and make them want to attack us. The French military wasted no time bombing Syria in retaliation for the...
Shi’ite-Kurd Tensions Continue; 104 Killed across Iraq
How To Beat ISIS: Quarantine Them
Stepping back from the horror, the editorializing, and our own sense of disbelief that such evil is even possible, let’s look at what’s actually happened within the space of a single week. The Islamic State, otherwise known as ISIS, has launched major attacks on three...
Paris: You Don’t Want to Read This
You don’t want to read this, and I take no pleasure in writing it, and no one really wants to hear it right now. But I believe it needs to be said. I join the world in grieving for the dead in Paris. I have grieved for the dead from 9/11 forward – the Australians who...
One Night in Kunduz, One Morning in New York
Here’s a little thought experiment: imagine that we’re in Kansas (without Toto) and a bridal party in three rented limos is heading down a highway toward a church where a wedding is about to take place. Suddenly, a small out-of-control plane plummets into those limos...
More Yazidi Mass Graves; 264 Killed across Iraq
At least 264 were killed or found in mass graves, and 97 were wounded: Yazidis returning to Sinjar may be looting Sunni homes and setting them on fire, according to eyewitnesses. Some Sunnis informed on their Yazidi neighbors in the days after Islamic State militants...


