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The Middle East Comes to Town: The New America Foundation

My dissertation advisor, Professor Shibley Telhami, is first to speak on this panel. The consummate diplomat, he still feels it necessary to point out the danger in allowing the Palestinian-Israeli...

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Sure, those nukes will be just fine . . . .

Perhaps I'm alone in enjoying a leisurely perusal of the Bureau of Industry and Security's monthly "Major Cases" list available at http://www.bis.doc.gov/news/index.htm#annual It's got all sorts of...

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New Crackdown on Shiites in Morocco

NPR has a story on recent Moroccan police activity in Tangier and across the country, targeting individuals suspected of being Shiite. Seems that the authorities were trying to get an idea of the...

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How many times can you answer a question about Palestine with "Well, Iran . ....

Unfortunately, if you're Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic, pretty much every time. He was one of three guests on the Dian Rehm Show this morning (along with Daniel Levy and David Makovsky) in a...

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Michel Kilo to continue opposition work after being released from Syrian prison

France 24 has the story here.

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Reading Beyond the Lines

Political Science, and in particular international relations, can be a dodgy subject because practitioners often deal in documents or sources that are less than reliable. These then get picked up by...

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US-UAE Nuclear Deal

The US-UAE Nuclear Deal: Turning the Straight of Hormuz into a Nuclear Tijuana? Somehow government bureaucracies manage to suck all the intrigue out of their reports, turning would-be political...

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NPR: Syria and Iraq Revive Business Ties

Great info from Syria experts Landis and Harling from ICG . . .

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US Ambassador to Syria

US will appoint ambassador to Syria soon - about time! Story from AFP here.

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50 Individuals in India control 20% of country's GDP

I think this is probably the highest concentration of wealth on the globe; FT has the story here.

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Dubai reigns in real estate oligarchs

An FT article on the merger of several partially state-owned real estate development firms in Dubai says the move is a "decision to merge the real estate entities . . . to break down the business...

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Syrian reaction to success of Hariri/Future Party

This response sounds pretty reasonable to me (basically the Syrians concede that even if the pro-Syrian opposition would have won much of the world would have isolated the new Lebanese regime - a fact...

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Workshop Intriques: Weapons Espionage

Saw Issandr Al-Amrani's recent post about the JPost article on Egyptian military's purchase of Russian air defense systems. Since the Russians are unlikely to accept anything less than hard currency...

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MEP article on Syria and Financial Crisis

Better link to MEP article . . .

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"Shock and Audit" MJ Report on Defense Budget

The Defense Dept. never ceases to amaze. After roughly 7 hours of tense discussion on defense budgetary priorities (tense b/c I had the gall to question whether the actual goal of defense spending was...

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Apparently the shelf-life of American Exceptionalism is . . . . really long

In the interest of full disclosure, I never read Gelb's "Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy". From the reviews/excerpts such as this one in the NY Review of Books, it's...

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Britain halts some arms exports to Israel in response to Gaza conflict

. . . . . yeah, like 5 out of almost 200 contracts: not exactly a penalty. Times Online has the story here.

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How to be tough on Egypt AND Israel

The JPost has an opinion article from last week that suggests the Obama Administration is being too easy on Egypt (I won't even address the author's suggestion that the Administration is being tough on...

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New Info on (no longer) secret CIA program

NYTimes has story, "CIA had plan to assassinate Al-Qaeda leaders."

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In Italy, wedding bouquet throw crashes plane

A Western cultural corollary to the gun fire that usually follows similar ceremonies in 'traditional' societies. Maybe brides should just start firing pistols instead. Article here.

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Taliban issue little blue book "Code of Conduct"

"The Taliban in Afghanistan has issued a book laying down a code of conduct for its fighters. Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of the book which further indicates that Mullah Omar, the movement's leader,...

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My article on negotiations with Israel

Beyond Muscle: Using Financial Leverage for Middle East PeaceIn late August, the U.S. and Israeli governments appeared to have settled on a grand strategy to advance Middle East peace, one that traded...

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Saudi Businessmen and Global Warming . . .

The FT has been really great at covering this long-running Saudi billionaire's feud. Today's article points out just how ridiculous these families really are. In addition to being generally despicable...

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Top Ten Ways to Convince Muslims the US is on a Crusade

An unbelievable piece from Chris Rodda at the Huffington Post. Below is just #9 - read the whole post here: 9. Have top U.S. military officers appear in a video showing just how Christian the Pentagon...

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"Take me back to . . . . when I could talk about the Soviets"

Edward Luttwack has an interesting piece in Foreign Policy this month . . . interesting given his Cold War-era publication record. A quick summary so that you don't have to read his collected works...

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