If all Henry Kissinger contributed to the Middle East were a regional arms race, petrodollar addiction, Iranian radicalization, and the Tehran-Riyadh conflict, it would be bad enough. His legacy, however, is far worse than that: he has to answer for his role in the rise of political Islam.
Read more...European leaders are still in denial about the seriousness of the refugee crisis and are focused on what amount to stopgap measure.
Read more...The US has special ops missions in 70% of the countries in the world,, more than at the height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read more...A detailed discussion of how the US-Iran nuclear agreement is leading to considerable changes in alliances and priorities in the Middle East.
Read more...Private-equity-backed providers undercut charities in providing refugee services. It’s not hard to imagine how the results are coming in.
Read more...Five countries, and not necessarily the ones you’d expect, are particularly vulnerable to protracted low oil prices.
Read more...How the US has developed military muscle at the expense of brainpower.
Read more...Does it make sense to look at the Saudi strategy within the oil industry alone, or do analysts need to start factoring in deflationary economic policies around the world?
Read more...Don’t sweat the details of the US/Iran nuclear accord. What matters is that the calculus of power in the Middle East just changed, big time.
Read more...The many false and self-defeating premises behind our continued intervention in Iraq.
Read more...How US superpower overreach has hit the breaking point, yet the officialdom acts as if somehow doing more will succeed.
Read more...Even though China’s Silk Road initiative is in its early stages and still opportunistic, traditional rivalries could impede progress. Even so, the US is concerned about how China has gotten and is making countermoves.
Read more...An important, sobering description of how US military overreach became institutionalized.
Read more...Yves here. As much as technology offers great promise as a way to create new routes for organizing, consensus-building, and decision-making, I’m not optimistic about the prospects for democracy in societies with no democratic traditions. Nevertheless, voter choice technology does seem more promising and lower cost than US adventurism as a way to try to build democratic muscles in the Middle East.
Read more...Yves here. I know some readers have begged to differ, but Very Serious People are not described in the same terms as pop culture icons. Thus, as Bill Black points out, the “rock star” branding of Varoufakis is a way to depict him as a colorful, entertaining lightweight.
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