Monthly Archives: May 2012
The Pitfalls of Passive Policy
Perhaps the most useful way to think of this brief comment is as a postscript to what I wrote yesterday. The media reports on Syria today are deeply disheartening—frustrating, really. The basic theme is the realization that the Annan plan … Continue reading
Obama Gets Tough on Syria, Cancels Assad’s Library Card
There’s an old Booth New Yorker cartoon showing an old man sitting in an armchair cackling while reading the newspaper, and back over his shoulder his wife says to a visitor something to the effect, “George has always enjoyed reading … Continue reading
More Syria Policy Failure
In recent weeks I have twice written in this space of the Obama Administration’s efforts to cover up its politically motivated spinelessness over Syria with efforts to make it seem like it’s doing something constructive. Using the New York Times … Continue reading
Look Before You Leap
It used to be, I think, that the vast majority of strategists and statesmen played chess, or in non-Western cultures some comparably complex game that required players to anticipate what their opponents might do in an extended sequence of moves. … Continue reading
Improbable Beliefs
It occurred to me recently that one somewhat glib way to define a religious believer is to say that he (or she) is a person who counts every other religion’s narrative as impossibly far-fetched, except his own. If one puts … Continue reading
Obama Administration Spinning on Syria
The news from Syria in recent days is more of the same—bad—except for when it is worse than bad. On Saturday a suicide bombing in Deir ez-Zour, apparently aimed at a regime target, killed 9 people and wounded more than … Continue reading
Jewcentricity on the Tube
I have before me a little eight-sheet brochure called “Guide To Jewish TV Programs.” It is advertising something called “The Jewish Channel”, abbreviated TJC, with a little Star of David above the “J”—very cute. Inside, the brochure refers to TJC … Continue reading
Feckless in Syria
There is a particularly interesting article in today’s Washington Post on the situation in Syria. It is closer to news analysis than it is to a straight news article, which explains the sharp discrepancy between today’s Post coverage and that … Continue reading
An Essential Writing Guide
I’m really happy to announce that my latest book, Political Writing: A Guide to the Essentials, is being published today by M.E. Sharpe. Before anyone gets too excited about this (yes, that’s a joke….) let me note that this book is … Continue reading
Lebanon on the Brink
In my most recent post on Syria, I wrote that one “likely result” of a salafi Sunni political surge in Syria would be “a new [Lebanese] civil war, with a beginning epicenter most like in and around Tripoli.” I didn’t … Continue reading
